“Blessed are those who keep His testimonies, who seek Him with the whole heart”
Psalm 119:2
In this verse David tells us that one mark of a blessed man is one who seeks God with their whole heart. And yet how rare is the professing Christian who meets this description. Oh yes, there are many who claim to seek God, but can it truly be said it is with their “whole heart?” If not, then it is at best only a nominal seeking, a sickly lukewarm complacency from which little or no blessing should be expected.
By way of contrast, I have seen many men and women in the business world of whom it could be said that they seek the rewards of success “with the whole heart”. After all, the system is designed to spew out any who don’t. They are willing to sacrifice personal comforts: sleep, food, leisure time, family companionship, and in many cases, their marriages and health. Some sales people I’ve seen spend most of their waking hours, including the late hours of night, (sometimes including weekends and even vacations) on their cell phones, checking email on their laptops and writing reports and proposals on airplanes. All willingly and energetically done for the pursuit of money, the “good life”, promotion and a few fleeting moments of recognition and glory.
Now before you congratulate yourself that you don’t live this way, let me ask you, “Do you apply the same kind of sincerity and diligence in your seeking of God? Can it be said that you seek the Lord “with the whole heart?” An unbelieving world pursues happiness and blessing in the things of the world with great determination and single-mindedness. As such, they shame most professing Christians who do not pursue what they profess to believe with the same energy, zeal, and devotion.
The puritan Thomas Manton provided these four criteria to help us examine whether we are seeking God with our whole heart:
Commit yourself to conducting a personal spiritual inventory. God requires and has every right to receive the fullest devotion from His blood bought and cleansed children. The Apostle Paul wrote, “You were bought at a price: therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s” (I Corinthians 6:20). He also wrote to the Romans, “I beseech you therefore brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service” (12:1).
God will settle for nothing less than all of you, your whole heart. To pretend to have one foot in the kingdom and one foot still in the pleasures and pursuits of this world is to have a divided heart with divided loyalties. God’s confrontations, “Choose for yourself this day whom you will serve” (Joshua 24:15), “How long will you falter between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him” (I Kings 18:21), and “do you love Me more than these?” (John 21:15), are the same for you and me today. What shall it be?
By God’s grace may you seek Him “with the whole heart” today and all your life!
Psalm 119:2
In this verse David tells us that one mark of a blessed man is one who seeks God with their whole heart. And yet how rare is the professing Christian who meets this description. Oh yes, there are many who claim to seek God, but can it truly be said it is with their “whole heart?” If not, then it is at best only a nominal seeking, a sickly lukewarm complacency from which little or no blessing should be expected.
By way of contrast, I have seen many men and women in the business world of whom it could be said that they seek the rewards of success “with the whole heart”. After all, the system is designed to spew out any who don’t. They are willing to sacrifice personal comforts: sleep, food, leisure time, family companionship, and in many cases, their marriages and health. Some sales people I’ve seen spend most of their waking hours, including the late hours of night, (sometimes including weekends and even vacations) on their cell phones, checking email on their laptops and writing reports and proposals on airplanes. All willingly and energetically done for the pursuit of money, the “good life”, promotion and a few fleeting moments of recognition and glory.
Now before you congratulate yourself that you don’t live this way, let me ask you, “Do you apply the same kind of sincerity and diligence in your seeking of God? Can it be said that you seek the Lord “with the whole heart?” An unbelieving world pursues happiness and blessing in the things of the world with great determination and single-mindedness. As such, they shame most professing Christians who do not pursue what they profess to believe with the same energy, zeal, and devotion.
The puritan Thomas Manton provided these four criteria to help us examine whether we are seeking God with our whole heart:
- When the settled purpose of our souls is to cleave to God, to love and serve him with an entire obedience both in the inward and outward man, when this is the full determination and consent of our hearts.
- When we do what we can by all good means to maintain this purpose; for otherwise it is but a fruit of conviction, a free-will pang. “Herein do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void of offence toward God, and toward men” (Acts 24:16).
- When we search out our defects, and are ever bewailing them with kindly remorse. “O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of death” (Romans 7:24).
- When we run by faith to Christ Jesus, and sue out our pardon and peace in Christ’s name, until we come to be complete in him. “That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God” (Colossians 1:10).
Commit yourself to conducting a personal spiritual inventory. God requires and has every right to receive the fullest devotion from His blood bought and cleansed children. The Apostle Paul wrote, “You were bought at a price: therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s” (I Corinthians 6:20). He also wrote to the Romans, “I beseech you therefore brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service” (12:1).
God will settle for nothing less than all of you, your whole heart. To pretend to have one foot in the kingdom and one foot still in the pleasures and pursuits of this world is to have a divided heart with divided loyalties. God’s confrontations, “Choose for yourself this day whom you will serve” (Joshua 24:15), “How long will you falter between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him” (I Kings 18:21), and “do you love Me more than these?” (John 21:15), are the same for you and me today. What shall it be?
By God’s grace may you seek Him “with the whole heart” today and all your life!