Dave’s Monday Blast – February 24, 2020
Last week we examined a passage from Ezekiel 36 discovering that our God desires for us to have a tender or pliable heart that is responsive His promptings. In essence, He has created us to have an intimate relationship with Him. He desires to share His heart with ours. Unfortunately, so many view God as an enforcer of religious rules. They see the commands in Scripture as a list of to-dos rather than a path leading to an abundant life. INTENTIONAL men of God know that those perceptions aren’t the truth of Scripture. Those beliefs are founded on misguided notions of God’s character.
Craig Denision comments: “Make no mistake…God is after our heart. More than He wants us to DO right, He wants us to see Him rightly. He wants going to church, reading the Bible, worshipping, serving the poor (James 1:27), and living righteously to come from a heart filled with a true revelation of His loving-kindness.” That’s good isn’t it!
Jeremiah 24:7 says: “I will give them a heart to know that I am the Lord, and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart.” We were made to know and be known by Him. Those truths are meant to define both our identity and our actions It’s meant to lay the foundation on which we live, think, feel, and do. And it’s only in living in relationship with God as our chief and central pursuit that our lives reflect His unceasing love and devotion. (Check out the song Fully Known by Tauren Wells on YouTube.)
Many of us have lived with wrong things at the center of our lives. We’ve allowed worldly pursuits, admiration of others, identity in our works, and an image of perfection to be the things that have driven us moment by moment. Unfortunately, in those pursuits one only finds disappointment, exhaustion, and unfulfilled longings. Even within the context of Christianity there is temptation to be led by that which is worldly, that which will never satisfy.
Next week let us consider another way to live…God’s way.
