A Heart for God

Our heart is where our passions lie, it is where we find our motivation for what we do. It is the centre of our thoughts, where we yearn inwardly, where we dare to dream. In this time of soaking prayer, let us lay our Hearts open before God. What are the things that we personally live for? Do we yearn to achieve more? And what does that perceived achievement look like from God's perspective? Are we feeling burdened by health concerns, or worried about issues within our family circle? Are we nurturing dreams that no-one knows about? That are just between us and God? But gathering dust in the corner of our mind. God's view of our life is higher and greater than ours. What are the barriers to receiving more of the father's heart into our own heart?

Psalm 53 v10 says

Create in me a pure heart, O God and renew a steadfast spirit in me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

A heart that is right with God, spiritually, is able to receive more of His love. But our heart may contain less desirable passions, the sins of being selfish rather than godly, a love of material comforts, or we are intent on amassing wordly wealth: maybe we have a secretly rebellious side to our nature, that chooses self preservation rather than stepping out in faith, or another kind of disobedience like having a tendency towards procrastination, rather than meeting a challenging situation by letting God take the lead.

It as though our wordly nature can sculpt out holes, in our heart like those in this ornament, and this causes barriers to us receiving the whole of God's love, power and grace, that He wants to lavish upon us,  our pared down heart lessens our capacity to receive.

Lord we ask that you would help us in our weaknesses to get our hearts right with you.

When we became a Christian God anointed our lives with His Holy spirit. In Acts the holy spirit came upon the disciples in tongues of fire. 

This ornament reminds me that His Holy Spirit burns inside our heart like a small flame.

2Timothy 1:6 exhorts us to ...

...fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God did not give us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power, of love and of self- discipline.

And God has the ability to give us a new heart, a heart that is  more perfectly aligned to His will.

Ezekiel 36: 26, 27

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees.

If we delight ourselves in the Lord, He is then the desire of our hearts, He is the one we long for, He is the one we seek. Nothing is greater than finding ourselves in the presence of God.

Psalm 16:11

In your presence is fulness and joy; At your right hand are pleasures for evermore.