All He Wants.....

Yesterday I read Heb 3:7-15

"Therefore as the Holy Spirit says:

"Today if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts as in rebellion, In the day of trial in the wilderness, where your fathers tested me and tried me, and saw my works for 40 yrs. Therefore I was angry with that generation, And said "They always go astray in their hearts, and they have not known my ways." So I swore in my wrath , they shall not enter my rest."

I read and re read this scripture then spent a lot of time meditating and worshipping, trying to hear from the Lord. God what was your heart behind this passage? What do you want me to take away from this? After a couple of hours the Lord spoke to me and said, "All I want is your heart!"

All I want is your heart?

As I began to pray about that the Lord showed me that that is all He has ever asked for. Let shed some light on the passage above so we can fully understand what it is the Lord is saying.

When the writer of Hebrews mentions "rebellion" and "the day of trial in the wilderness" He is referring to specifically to when Moses had led the Israelites into Meribah in Exodus 17:1-7. Once Moses had brought them there the poeple began to complain and grumble against Moses and God saying God brought them there to die of thirst and was He not able enough to provide water for them. So in this passage here in Hebrews we see the Holy Spirit reminding the reader to not do what the Israelites did to God, meaning test Him, try Him, see His works for 40 years and still harden their hearts against Him.

One commentator said that to harden your heart means "to reach such a state that God's voice makes no impression!"

After reading this far I was forced to ask myself the question..Have I ever acted as if the voice of God meant nothing? How many times have I heard the voice of the Lord, or felt the Lord leading me into something and yet completely hardened my heart towards it?

The passage says that not only did they test, and try Him but saw His works for 40 years..meaning they saw all the marvelous acts of God. They experienced His faithfulness to them over and over again. They knew that He was a good God and yet still found it in their hearts to test Him, doubt Him, make Him prove Himself to them?.....What nerve did they have? Who did they think they were? They had experienced God's ultimate favor and love and had the audacity, and disrepect to still question Him and His motives!....Sound familiar? What will it take for us to trust Him? How much do we need God to prove to us in order for us to fully believe that He has our best interest in mind? How long do we expect Him to deal with our disrespect?

If we go back to the passage we see that because of the attitudes of the Israelites God was "angry" with that generation and said, "They always go astray in their hearts". The greek meaning of the word "angry" means "displeased, offended and even disgusted". The actions of the Israelites displeased, offended and disgusted God. That is a huge statement! Can you imagine making the person who loves you more than anyone else in the world displeased, offended and disgusted by the way YOU are acting.

After reading this, the question then became for me, "What made God that offended?" Was it just the fact that they tested Him or was it more because they should have trusted Him by now, was it that they complained against Him? Then I realized those things were just a byproduct of the real problem. The real problem was that their heart was always going astray. That is it! That is what everything boils down to, the heart of God's people constantly going astray! That is what offeneded God. That is what disgusted and dipleased God. It was the fact that the one thing He wanted, kept turning away from Him. You see God knew that the way the Israelites were grumbling, complaining, being disrepectful and testing Him could only happen if their hearts were far from Him. That is the only way that a person could witness the hand of God, see Him be faithful in their life and still harden their heart toward Him.

In this passage I see the heart of God and the fact that all He has ever wanted was our heart. In fact even after all the unfaithfulness of man He still wanted it enough to send His son to die for us, just so He could have it. I honestly believe God is not as concerned with every action of sin that we are commiting as much as He is concerned with the reason we are commiting that sin, and that is because our heart is far from Him.

When our heart is lined up with God's then we care about the things He cares about. We want the things He wants, and we despise the things He despises. You see if God has our heart then all those other things will come because we are just so consumed with being pleasing to Him that thirst won't cause us to grumble, compain and doubt. We will be so consumed with him that finances won't cause us to grumble, complain and doubt. Marriage problems won't shake us nor anything else that might happen in this life. Our heart is with God's heart and we trust Him and Him only.

So then I ask myself the questions,"What in my life is causing my heart to stray from God? What is making me lose my focus? What grumbling or complaining do I have going on in my heart even though I know God is faithful and have seen Him be so before?

I make a decision today to watch my actions and make sure they do not displease, disgust or depise the heart of God. All He wants is my heart and God I give it to you!

My prayer:

God, I know that sometimes my actions don't line up with my words! I say I trust you and but then sometimes secretly expect you to prove yourself to me even though I already know you are faithful. I just want to keep my heart as close to yours as possible. I want to smile at the things you smile at and frown at the things you frown at. I realize that this is all you want from me. Help me to keep surrendering to you. God I also know that in order to line up with your heart I must first know what is in your heart through reading Your word and through prayer. God would you give me strength to keep getting in your Word everyday to find out more of your heart. I don't want to go astray, I belong with YOU. I love you! Amen.