Love God With All Your Heart

So here's what I want to do with this.  Psalm 1 talks about the blessed man, that:

"His delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night."  

That word "meditates" (according to the ESV Study Bible), describes "an active pondering, perhaps even muttering to oneself in pursuit of insight."  So I want to actively ponder the 2 commands on which the entire law hangs, and specifically, today, what it means to, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart."

Now, the heart is a hollow muscle that pumps blood throughout the blood vessels by repeated, rhythmic contractions.  The heart is what keeps us alive.

As long as the heart is pumping, there is life.  

So to love the Lord your God with all your heart, means to love him with the very thing that keeps me alive.  And as I think about the muscle that keeps me alive, I think of how God is in fact, the one who sustains my life, the one who knows the number of my days, the one who formed my heart and gave me life and the one who will one day cause my heart to stop beating.  So to love God with my actual physical heart, is to remember that God is the giver and taker of life.  But there is more to this.

What does the rest of the Bible say about our heart?

In 1 Samuel 16:7, Samuel is getting ready to anoint the new king of Israel.  He's with this family and there are several young men who look the part, but one in particular.  His name was Eliab.  Samuel sees these young men, but when he looked at Eliab, Samuel thought, "Surely the Lord's anointed is before him."  Eliab was the oldest, and probably the biggest and the most mature looking of the bunch.  If a king had to be picked from this group, Samuel figured:

It would be this guy for sure.  

But God had a very interesting word for Samuel at that moment.  God told Samuel, "Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him."  Why?  Why reject a guy that totally looked the part?  Here's why:

"For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart."  

Huh.  The heart.  His hollow muscle didn't pump blood rhythmically enough?

Did Eliab just have really high cholesterol?

What was it about Eliab's heart that God didn't like?  I'll come back to that.

Let's take a quick look at some other verses and see what we can learn about the heart.  These are just a selected few.  If you don't want to read all these, you can just skip to the bottom where I summarize:

Psalm 37:4 - "Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Psalm 119:11 - "I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you."
Proverbs 27:19 - "As in water face reflects face, so the heart of man reflects the man."
Isaiah 57:15 - "For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: 'I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite."
Jeremiah 17:9-10 - "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? 'I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.'"
Ezekiel 36:26 - God says, "And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you.  And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a new heart of flesh."
Matthew 5:8 - "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."
Acts 2:37 - Now when they heard this (the gospel) they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?"
 1 Corinthians 4:5 - Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart.  Then each one will receive his commendation from God.
Revelation 2:23 - "And all the churches will know that I am he who searches mind and heart, and I will give to each of you according to your works."

So, back to Eliab and to wrap all this up.  Eliab was rejected because he didn't have the heart that God wanted.  He didn't love the Lord his God with his life.  There were other things more important in life than God for Eliab.  His confidence and identity were not in God.  How do I know this?  Because of 2 other passages.  The first is 1 Samuel 13:13-14.  Saul was king of Israel and he did not keep the command of God.  So Samuel comes up to him and says to Saul,

"You have done foolishly.  You have not kept the command of the Lord your God, with which he commanded you.  For then the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever.  But now your kingdom shall not continue.  The Lord has sought out a man after his own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be prince over his people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you."  

The Lord rejects Saul for the same reason he rejects Eliab.  He wants a man after His own heart and that wasn't Eliab!  Look at Psalm 119:11 above.  A man after God's own heart strongly desires not to sin against God, and so he stores up the word of God in his heart.  Sin is a big deal to God.  And sin begins in the heart.

One more passage.  Right before the battle of David and Goliath.  David comes to the battle line and hears Goliath taunt and defy Israel.  David asks what will be done for the man who kills Goliath.  This is where we pick up:  

"Now Eliab [David's] eldest brother heard when [David] spoke to the men.  And Eliab's anger was kindled against David, and he said, 'Why have you come down?  And with whom have you left those few sheep in the wilderness?  I know your presumption and the evil of your heart, for you have come down to see the battle.'" 

Eliab was a chump.  He lacked courage and conviction.  He accused the heart of his little brother, who was a man after God's own heart.  David loved the Lord his God with all his heart.  Saul and Eliab did not.  

So what does it mean to love the Lord your God with all your heart?   

It means that we need to delight ourselves in God, memorize His Word and remain pure.  The thing that keeps us physically alive is our heart, sustained by God.  The things that keeps us spiritually alive is our relationship with the one who gave us life...God.  So to love God with all your heart means to center your life on Him, place your confidence in Him, find your courage in Him, and know that He is in fact, your Lord, and your God.  He gives the orders in your life, and you follow those orders, no matter the cost.  Loving God with all your heart means that your life on this earth is totally His, and that you will do whatever He asks of you.  You delight in Him, and so it brings you great pleasure to do whatever he asks.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart.