With My Whole Heart

Have you ever thought you understood a verse in the Bible, then you look at it again and suddenly you are filled with questions? That happened to me recently with a well known verse in Jeremiah, one that I have seen many times. I am feeling particularly challenged by the profound implications of what looks like a rather simple verse.

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.  Jeremiah 29:13

This is one of a number of verses in the Bible that use the phrase "with all your heart". Seek Him with all your heart. Love Him with all your heart. Serve Him with all your heart. Trust Him with all your heart. In the NLT it usually translates the phrase as "wholeheartedly". In other words, do these things with everything in you. Don't hold anything back. God says, when that's the way you seek me, then you will find me.

It kind of makes me think of a person receiving an Olympic gold medal. That medal represents a level of commitment and sacrifice and discipline most of us have never experienced. The gold medalist has pursued their sport and their goal with their whole heart.

I think there have been times in my life when I have been wholehearted in my desire and devotion to God (beyond what's normal for me, at least). There have been times when I cried out to God, desperate to know Him and totally willing to trust Him. There have been seasons when I wanted nothing more in my life than to serve Him with my very best. Yes, I think there have been times I approached wholehearted devotion.

But to be honest, probably a lot more often my desire to know and love and serve God could more accurately be described as "halfhearted". Those are the times when other things cloud my priorities. They are the times when other things take most of my time and attention, and I am rather content to give God whatever is left over. 

I'm not talking about turning my back on God or falling into sin or anything quite as dramatic as that. I'm talking about the seasons when life just got in the way and I was more focused on "stuff" than on pursuing the Almighty God. The truth is it happens to me a lot and (if I can simply make an observation), I'm thinking it probably happens to other people a lot too. The problem is it's just so easy to get lazy about our devotion to God, and it's so easy to let other things crowd into our lives at the expense of serving God with our whole heart.

I said I have questions about the verse in Jeremiah. Maybe that surprises you. After all, the verse is really just a few words and it looks straightforward enough on the surface, but I'm finding myself pondering two things particularly.

• What does it really mean to SEEK Him with my whole heart?. After all, we're not talking about a game of hide and seek where wholehearted might mean I am absolutely determined to find someone who is just as determined to stay hidden. I don't think God is hiding, so the hide and seek analogy doesn't work. So what does it really mean to seek God, and to do it with my whole heart?

• If I really FIND God, what does that look like? This verse is sometimes used in reference to the unsaved person seeking for God, as the Holy Spirit draws Him. I think there is truth in that application, but I'm not convinced that's all the verse really means. Somehow I think it has to do with the quality of our relationship with God. I feel like part of the answer is that if I seek him as if nothing in the world is more important, the result will be a relationship with God that is far more than the superficial kind of "knowing God" we most often experience and are satisfied with. But if I reach that pinnacle, what will my relationship with God look like? What will that mean to my ability to understand God, love God, hear from God? 

I guess I have another question, but it's not about the verse itself so I won't put it in the list with the others. Here it is. If we ever at any time experience the kind of relationship with God that comes from truly seeking Him with our whole hearts, or even something close,how can we be satisfied with anything else? How can we live with the more halfhearted, watered down kind of relationship we normally seem content with? I am asking myself that question. Having at times drawn so very much closer to God, willing to love Him and serve Him and trust Him with my whole heart, why is it so easy to slip into a much more mediocre kind of Christianity and be okay with it?

This is a subject I need to put a lot more prayer and thought into. For now, I'm just introducing the topic. Do you have any insight into the questions I've asked? Any thoughts on the topic? I'd be so happy to hear from you. Please send in your response below in the "post a comment" section. Let's explore this together.

it begins in the heart

I have been captivated for a while with the teaching of Jesus in what we call The Sermon On The Mount. I wrote a blog entry back in March expressing some thoughts on one aspect of this teaching, but I feel like talking a bit again today about that amazing sermon.

I think what keeps me coming back to these chapters in Matthew (5 - 7) is that the teaching relates to our everyday lives in such simple and practical ways. I don't mean to suggest the things Jesus taught in those chapters are easy for us to live up to. Far from it. But it seems to me to be a pretty clear statement of what a Christ follower looks like. i.e. what our attitudes and actions are supposed to be if we call ourselves Christians. Jesus said, you want to be a follower of mine? Here's what that looks like.

I've been reading and studying and teaching from the Bible for a long time, and I think I am reasonably intelligent, but I am a long way from being a theologian. In fact to be honest I sometimes lose patience with theological hair splitting and endless discussions about things we will never have a definitive answer for. I think sometimes we have to just come to the point of saying "if God thought we needed a definitive answer on that issue, He would have told us more clearly". Sure, we can speculate and express different interpretations, as long as it doesn't lead to arguments or division or dogmatic stands that are based only on opinion.

That can certainly happen with any scripture, including the sermon on the mount. If we are prone to parsing words and dissecting expressions in an attempt to discover some hidden "truth", there is as much fodder in Mathew 5 and 6 as anywhere else, I suppose.

I prefer to take a more simple view of what Jesus taught. When he said don't hold on to anger and grudges, he meant don't hold on to anger and grudges. When he said love your enemies, he meant love your enemies. When he said to invest in heavenly priorities instead of earthly treasures, that's what he meant. When he said trust God and don't worry, well... you get the point.

When Jesus sat on the hillside and began to teach, he knew he had an audience of common people oppressed by the Pharisees, confused about what God really wanted, and feeling hopeless about their ability to measure up. Jesus taught them in a way they hadn't experienced before. He told them it really starts in the heart. If your heart is right then you will do the things that are pleasing to God. And you will treat other people the way God wants you to treat them. It's very similar to his teaching about the greatest commandment, the clear implication being that if you love God will all your heart you will do the things that please him, and there won't really be a need for a rule book.

The sermon on the mount is not a new set of rules. It's Jesus revealing to us what's in his own heart when it comes to priorities, relationships with people, and relationship with God. It's an invitation to look like Jesus in all these things, to truly be a Christ follower.

Many things about the Bible are complex and that doesn't mean we should ignore them. We should do our best to understand what God is trying to teach us in all these things, provided we don't fight with others who honestly come to different conclusions than ours. But I really like that Jesus sat down one day with a bunch of ordinary folk and in effect said "here's where the rubber meets the road. Let me give you a glimpse of what's in my heart. Let me change your heart so it's like mine, and then it will be natural for your life to be pleasing to God."

I'm still going to read the rest of scripture and do my best to come to a right understanding. I'm still going to read and listen to the opinions of people who are more learned or have insights I haven't thought of. I'm still going to do my best to correctly handle the word of truth and be a workman who doesn't need to be ashamed. (2 Timothy 2:15) But when I am looking for guidance on what kind of action or attitude is pleasing to God, I can't find anything better than the words of Jesus in the sermon on the mount. I know of no better source of instruction for my every day life.