The Bible refers to at least 50 different terms descriptive of the condition of our heart. Words such as broken and contrite, discerning, hardened, devoted, foolish, pure, wounded, and undivided. I will be looking at these terms throughout the summer and will invite you to consider them in light of your own heart.
The one word that jumps out the most is “all” my heart. There are dozens of places where we are urged to know, love, serve, obey, trust, desire, seek, and extol God with all of our heart. Not just a portion of our hearts, as if it can be partitioned into segments of quarters, halves, fifths or tenths. No, with all of our heart, as well as our soul, mind and strength…nothing held back for ourselves – all of our heart given all for God.
When we love God with all of our heart, we are coming to the conclusion that He in fact wants all of our heart. We are acknowledging our need for God to reign supreme in our heart. We are professing our desperate need for God to take over every dark, distant, disillusioned part of our hearts and heal us from the inside out. We are saying yes to His invitation to trust and obey so that with all of our heart we may discover more and more of His heart for us and for our world. With all our heart we love God and follow after His personal rule of life for us – declaring every part of our lives in submission to God’s heart (see how others have inclined all their heart in God’s direction at www.RuleOfLife.com).
Loving God with all my heart is an invitation worth affirming, celebrating, claiming and living. In fact, don’t just make this choice for your own sake, impress it on your children, talk about it along the road of life, tie it like a string of remembrance on your finger, bind this priority on your forehead, write it on the doorframes of your house and on your gates (cf. Deut. 6: 4-9). Inclining the entirety of your heart in God’s direction will reap fruit beyond measure.
“I will praise you, O Lord, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonders. I will be glad and rejoice in you; I will sing praise to your name, O Most High,” Psalm 9:1.
