The heart is quick to fall in love with the things of this world. We run after the things of this world with great interest and it seems like we can’t bury ourselves deep enough in all those things that have the power to only give our heart a temporary high. Then after the high, the low comes shortly after and we wonder what on earth hit us, many of us being ignorant to what it was.
I don’t think I’ll ever forget how empty and unrestful the things of this world made me feel, never really having enough. I now count my past life a wasted life, filled with emptiness, vanity and unrest. I count it as wasted time, because it has robbed me many years of being with the one that alone has made me complete, in a way I still struggle to fully comprehend. I often wonder how was I this slow to find you? How did I miss the fact that your love is what my heart was searching for all along? I was blind folded, sinking deep into the things of this world. Believing that they had power to satisfy the heart.
Daily we have to be set apart from the world so the world never has the chance to do what it once had the power to do. To pull us away from the one who gives our life meaning, depth, peace and joy.
Mark 12:29-30
29 Jesus answered him, “The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one.
30 And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment.
He wants ALL of our heart, ALL our soul, ALL our mind, ALL our strength. If we love Him in this way that He asks us to love Him then surely our heart will have nothing left over for the world. It’s impossible to love him with everything we have and have love left for the world. Once we love him in this way and love our neighbor as ourselves, then we are in the best place that a person could be that is seeking for this better country, this country that is heavenly.
Jeremiah 17:9
The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?
God says that the heart is “deceitful above all things” and yet He also says that only those that have a pure heart will see Him. How can this be?
“Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD. For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched (dry as a bone) places in the wilderness, in a salt land that is not inhabited.” Jeremiah 17:5–6
God says if we trust in man it is like the “heath in the desert”. The heath is an area where little grows. It has an appearance of some vegetation but in reality, any plants there are weak.
How is it possible that this organ, the heart, could be this committed to it’s Redeemer since it’s a organ that’s deceitful above all things, desperately wicked? How can this organ love God to such depth? For this to happen, the fountain of the heart must be purified before the streams can become pure.
If we trust in man God says that our heart will be like a parched “wilderness, in a salt land and will not be inhabited.” Not inhabited by who? By God. Sin brings a desert to our heart. Anything good is incapable of growing there, yet somehow this heart needs to become pure.
How does God describe a heart in which He dwells?
“Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.” Jeremiah 17:7–8
The prophet here puts before us two finished pictures. In the one, the hot desert stretches on all sides. It is a waste land. Here and there a prickly shrub struggles to live, and just manages not to die. The other carries us to some overflowing river, where everything lives because water has come.
So, says Jeremiah, the two pictures represent two sets of men, one of them being distracted, trusting and clinging to men, ‘making flesh his arm and departing from the living God. The other, he who leans the whole weight of his needs, cares, sins and sorrows upon God. We have a choice to make, who is it that we trust in fully? According as we choose the one or the other, the experience of these vivid pictures will be ours.
Is our heart like a dry desert that is in desperate need of being watered, lifeless and pulls down those around us? Or is our heart well watered and alive, building up those around us?
Are we not halting between two opinions? Are we not neglecting to heed the light which God has given us? Take heed lest there be in any of us an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. We know not the time of our visitation. Our faith and Love should be like Job’s, that we may declare, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him” (Job 13:15).
Job made this statement when he was in a terrible time of pain and suffering. He had lost all of his children, his wealth and health, his friends were of no help. His wife offered no support and was in fact telling him to give up. But, as Job says, even if God did “slay” him, Job would still trust in Him. How many of us could say this as we loose everything good that we have here on earth? It’s clear to see that Job loved God with everything he had. What is hindering us from falling in love with God to the depth that Job’s love ran?
To such a depth, that generations later people still stand amazed at the love that this man had for His Redeemer. Is this fast fading world hindering us from laying everything down at His feet? Has our heart become attached to this world and we can’t bear to let go and embrace the One who is standing there with His arms outstretched? Has the devil come down with great wrath knowing his time is short and making sure that we are lovers of self, lovers of pleasure, rather than lovers of God? Are we falling into his net because our heart beats for worldly things rather then for our Redeemer?
Isaiah 26:9
With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.
Although His love is refused by hard, stubborn hearts, He returns to plead over and over again, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock.”
Hebrews 12:25-26 25 See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven, 26 whose voice then shook the earth; but now He has promised, saying, “Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven.”
“See that you do not refuse Him that speaks” let us not turn away from the voice who shook the earth and promises to once more not only shake the earth, but also heaven.
Every time we turn away our ear and refuse to listen, every time we fail to open the door of our heart, we strengthen ourselves in unbelief, and make ourselves more and more unwilling to listen to the voice of Him that speaketh, and decrease our chance of responding to the call of mercy. Let not Christ weep over us as He wept over Jerusalem, saying, “How often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.
The enemy was convinced that Job’s worship will end once his worldy possessions were taken away yet he was proven wrong and in the end God was honored when His servants worship didn’t cease when He was placed into the fire.
Job 1:21 And he said: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, And naked shall I return there. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; Blessed be the name of the LORD.”
Romans 5:5
“And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.”
The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts and it’s only possible through this that our love can be pure. This love is only possible when the Holy Spirit is given unto us. We cannot Love Him and our neighbor in a way that pleases Him until we love through the power of the Holy Spirit that we receive as a gift.
The lord has to bring trials and tests into our life’s so that it can be shown whether our commitment to him is genuine. God has tested many of His people to see how deep their roots of commitment ran. The Lord has to bring trials and tests into our life’s to expose the genuineness of our love.
Matthew 15:8
This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.
God was bragging about his servant Job, He was sure about Job’s commitment. Could He brag about us? Could He allow the devil to test us and have confidence that we would still stand and worship Him even when the enemy was given power to wipe out everything in our life that had any meaning? Would we still worship Him and say, Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him? Or would we grow cold towards Him, thinking He has forsaken us? Would the devil be pleased to say take away your hand and then you will see the quality of your servants love? If trials and tribulations have the power to cause our worship to come to an end then we never really worshipped him but rather we worshipped earthly things.
Revelation 2:25
“But that which ye have already hold fast till I come.”
What does hold fast mean? Hold fast to the comfort, the faith, the hope, that God has given you in His Word. Never be discouraged. A discouraged man can do nothing. Satan is seeking to discourage us, telling us it is of no use to serve God, that it does not pay, and that it is just as well to have pleasure and enjoyment in this world. But “what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul”?
We may have worldly pleasure at the expense of the future world, but can we afford to pay such a price? We are to “hold fast” and live up to all the light we receive from heaven. When we gave ourselves to Christ, we made a pledge in the presence of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, we need to “Hold fast” to this pledge.
Revelation 3:11 Behold, I am coming quickly! Hold fast what you have, that no one may take your crown.
Holding fast what we have because He is our everything, holding fast because we value His love above all earthly things. May we work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, making sure that no earthly thing has the power to snatch that crown out of our hands.
When the devil was given access to Job he wasted no time, He without mercy worked overtime to rapidly bring one destruction after the other upon Job. Job was still reeling from the first blow when he was blasted with another and he must have felt like there is no end to the destructive power that surrounded him.
We can only imagine the devil’s rage and confusion when He saw Job stand and worship God even when it seemed like God had forgotten Him. Job refused to let go of his God and so in love was He with him that not even God slaying Him would have changed His love and his trust towards Him. There was literally nothing on earth that could dim the love that Job had in his heart for his Redeemer.
Job 13:15 Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him. Even so, I will defend my own ways before Him.
This is a man that refused to let go and it mattered not what He had to endure, he still clung to God. How much trial would we need to make us stop worshipping Him? Maybe one little wind would be all it would need. This love that was in Jobs heart does not make sense to the world but this is a love and commitment that God is longing for still today. Job loved God with His whole heart, all his soul, all his mind and all his strength and His works gave evidence that nothing had the power to change that love.
Job 19 25 For I know that my Redeemer lives, And He shall stand at last on the earth; 26 And after my skin is destroyed, this I know, That in my flesh I shall see God, 27 Whom I shall see for myself, And my eyes shall behold, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!
After all that He went through Job could declare I know that my Redeemer lives. Job’s heart yearned to see His Redeemer. In Habakkuk 3, it says the mountains saw thee and they trembled, the sun and moon stood still in their habitation. At the sight of Him some of his creation trembles and some of it stands still but all those hearts that loved him, will yearn to at last stand face to face with Him and at last see the one who has stolen their whole heart.