With Our Whole Heart

Psalm 139; Psalm 19:12

"The sin that we cover, He will uncover — the sin that we uncover, He will cover. Surrender your whole heart to Him. Without a doubt, it will turn your life around."

The quote above struck me this morning. Particularly because of recent events in the life of our local church body - we have been rocked by sin uncovered...but now covered by the Lord - we are in a process which I believe is part of God bringing revival to His Church and thus extending the Kingdom of God in the community. That is how God works. He brings about repentance and life to His people (we all need to repent as part of our daily walk). And then those who are not yet part of God's Kingdom, see how God's people respond to the grace and mercy of the Lord toward themselves - us, God's people!

With this, yesterday, last night and this morning, the Lord has had me focused on 'the heart - relationship with Him', our hearts, my heart. What does it mean to "love God with all of our (my) heart..."? My WHOLE heart? The more my whole heart is toward, with God, the more fulness of walking in the Holy Spirit I will experience and the less giving in to temptation - going my own way - will materialize.

Let's face it. If there was any way I could walk in the Lord on my own - without my entire heart/being in relationship with God - then Jesus died for nothing. I wouldn't need Jesus if I could do it on my own. Neither would you. We can't. We need Jesus and He needs our whole heart and we need to give Him our whole heart. By God's grace, through the Holy Spirit, because of Jesus death, burial and resurrection - we can give Him our whole heart.


Our Whole Heart

“What a man [a woman] is before God, that he [she] is and nothing more.” -St. Francis of Assisi
Delilah said to him, “How can you say you ‘I love you’ when your heart is not with me?… So Sampson told her all that was in his heart… when Delilah saw that he had told her all that was in his heart, she sent and called the lord of the Philistines… and called for a man and had him shave off the seven locks of his hair… she said, “The Philistines are upon you, Sampson!” And he awoke from his sleep and said, “I will go out as at other times and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the LORD had abandoned him. (Judges 16)
Sampson. Powerful and strong. It is interesting that his strength was not really in his hair. His strength was in his heart. He was a Nazirite. The Hebrew word nazir means consecrated or separated. And it was by choice. His mother Manoah had dedicated him to this Nazirite vow before his birth. However, Hebrew law required that when he was old enough to understand, he recommit his life… permanently… to this vow. His heart belonged solely to his God. Until he gave it up to Delilah.
In a similar story, Amaziah served as king in Jerusalem. 2 Chronicles 25:2 records this indictment, “And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, but not with a perfect heart.” Again, the original Hebrew language gives incredible insight into this verse. The word perfect (shalem), denotes complete… full… finished. Most of Amaziah’s heart was God’s. But he had saved out a little portion for himself. In the end, he was defeated and captured by Joash.
Could it be that many of the struggles in our Christian walk can be traced back to the same issue that Sampson and Amaziah had? A heart that is not “perfect” toward God. Those tiny areas that we hang onto for ourselves. The hidden parts. It has been said, “You’re only as sick as your secrets”. Perhaps that is why the Psalmist David pleaded “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me.” Psalm 139:23-24 (KJV) Again in Psalm 19:12 “… cleanse thou me from secret faults.” (KJV)
The “grace” piece in all of this, is that God will do just that. He will show you the fragment of your heart that is not His. His Light will shine in the dark places of your heart to reveal the “secret place”. The sin that we cover, He will uncover — the sin that we uncover, He will cover. Surrender your whole heart to Him. Without a doubt, it will turn your life around. (Our Whole Heart is from aacc.net ).