Pursuing the Heart of God
Enough
When is enough, enough?
Have you ever thought about that question?
We live in a world that says enough is never enough!
This summer my wife has been on a mission to clean some of the clutter out of our house. It’s amazing to see all the things piled up we don’t use anymore, all the things we thought we needed at the time and maybe we did, but we don’t need them anymore.
We are always in pursuit of something. And we’re almost always in pursuit of more.
The truth is, we live in a world of constant pursuit.
But the more we have the more we want. We are never satisfied. And at the end of all of our pursuits isn’t fulfillment. It’s emptiness. It isn’t joy, it’s often disappointment.
We can have all the riches the world has to offer but if we don’t have God, we have nothing.
I just wonder if, in all our pursuing, if we haven’t lost sight of what, or WHO, we should be pursuing.
The Right Pursuit
David once wrote, “O God, you are my God; I earnestly search for you. My soul thirsts for you; my whole body longs for you.”
David was known as a man after God’s own heart. He is remembered as someone who was in pursuit of the heart of God. And it was in that pursuit that he found his purpose, his identity, and ultimately his legacy.
So what does it look like to pursue the heart of God? What does it look like to be after the heart of God?
PRAYER
For David, he pursued the heart of God in prayer. He once wrote:
O Lord, hear me as I pray;
for I pray to no one but you.
– Psalm 5.1-2
The psalms are filled with the prayers of David, the words he wrote and prayed over and over again as he pursued the heart of God in times of silence, solitude, and prayer.
FASTING
David no doubt spent hours in prayer. But he also spent time fasting before the Lord.
At one of the most desperate times in his life, scripture records that, “[David] went without food and lay all night on the bare ground.” – 2 Samuel 12.16
David wrote about times of fasting in the psalms as well. Biblical fasting is the spiritual practice of denying the physical for spiritual purposes. It’s learning to rely on God and God alone.
In a world of excess, it is good to go without so we can learn to lean on God. David fasted, but he wasn’t the only one. Moses, Elijah, Esther, Daniel, Anna, Paul, and Jesus himself fasted.
WORSHIP
Through prayer and fasting, David learned to pursue the heart of God. And those practices led him into worship. David once sang, “Worship the Lord in all his holy splendor.” 1 Chronicles 16.29
The truth is, we become like what we behold. We become like what we give our undivided attention to.
Worship reminds us who we are, who we are not, and who God is. David pursued the heart of God in worship declaring his glory and greatness.
Undivided Attention
I just wonder what would happen if we set out to clear the clutter of our lives so we could make room to pursue the heart of God. If we set aside time for prayer, if we made room for fasting, if we gave God our undivided attention in worship.
What would happen when we gather together for worship on Sunday if we’ve spent time individually in solitude and silence with God throughout the week?
This is my prayer for you, may you be a man, a woman, AFTER the heart of God. Pursuing the heart of God. And in your pursuing may you remember, He is already pursuing you.
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