Whom
have I in heaven but You? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You. Psalms 73:25 NKJV
Most
of us have had the opportunity to either fall in love, or know someone who
believed they were in love with someone else.
As a father of three daughters, I certainly had plenty of opportunity to
observe the changes that occurred when my girls believed they were in love with
a boy. Looking back at those times now makes
me laugh, but at the time I can certainly remember experiencing much different
feelings. Watching them change the way
they dressed, the way they talked, the way they acted, and especially wanting
to be wherever their “friend” might be was something I wasn’t quite prepared
for as a father.
Yet
the point of this is simply that when someone is in love with someone else, it
produces an obvious change which is observable simply by watching their
actions. As we have been discussing the
differences between what the Word describes as a true believer rather than a “fake”
believer, one of the things that comes to mind concerns the changes which we
could expect to see in someone who claims to be a believer. Those who profess
to have committed themselves to a loving relationship with God should naturally
exhibit the desires anyone has when they are in love.
With
that idea in mind, I believe there are at least three desires which we could
reasonably expect to see in the life of someone who has a heart for God.
A desire
to know God.
“Now therefore, I pray, if I have found grace
in Your sight, show me now Your way, that I may know You and that I may find
grace in Your sight. And consider that this nation is Your people.” Exodus
33:13 NKJV
In this prayer, Moses tells the Father that
his desire is to “know” Him. The Hebrew
word for know is “yada’” which is
translated; to learn to know, perceive,
discern, distinguish, to know by experience.
Obviously this is not referring to a casual friendship, but rather a
deep, serious relationship where Moses wants to understand how God thinks, what
He wants, and how best to serve Him.
This is an example of a desire to totally commit oneself to
understanding God and His ways in order to please Him by doing only those
things which we know He would approve of.
Beloved,
let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of
God and knows God.
He who does not love does not know
God, for God is love. 1 John 4:7-8 NKJVA desire to experience the presence of God.
When
thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face,
LORD, will I seek. Hide not thy face far
from me; put not thy servant away in anger: thou hast been my help; leave me
not, neither forsake me, O God of my salvation.
Psalms 27:8-9 NKJV
How important is it to you to spend time in
the company of someone you love? Most of
us can relate to, and understand the desire to spend time with the one we
love. In this passage we see exactly how
important it was to David to spend time in the presence of God. The desire of his heart was to “seek” the
face of God and to experience a relationship where the possibility of
separation was so frightening to David that he literally pleads with God not to
hide his face from him. How much time do
you think believers should spend with God compared with the time spent on other
relationships?
Therefore,
laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes,
desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious. 1 Peter 2:1-3 NKJV
A
desire to see God’s glory.
[[A
Psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah.]] O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee:
my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty
land, where no water is;
To see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary. Because
thy lovingkindness is better
than life, my lips shall praise thee.
Psalms 63:1-3 NKJV
When
I think about the glory of God I think of two things. The first is what happens in the Bible
whenever someone experienced the glory of God firsthand, and that is that they
immediately fell on their faces in worship to Him. The presence of the Glory of God produces
worship, and I can think of no other desire that shows a believers love for God
than the desire to worship Him. The
second is that those who experienced His glory firsthand had an immediate
change in their physical appearance.
Have you had the opportunity to observe the change in someone when they
think they are in love? When we as
believers seek God’s glory, it will reflect in our outward appearance.
For
it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in
our hearts to give the light of
the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 2Corinthians
4:6 NKJV
Do
you have a heart for God? Is your
relationship with Him the most important relationship you have? If so, that love should be obvious to
everyone we come in contact with.
How? Our desire will be to study
His ways until we know exactly what He would want us to do in any
situation. We will want to spend as much
time with Him as we possibly can in order to experience the love He has for
us. Most of all as we seek to worship
Him we will reflect His glory in such a way as to show the world that the love
He has for us is a life changing love which is available in no other than a
personal relationship with Him through the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus
Christ.
Do
you have a heart for God?
Keep
watching.