Proverbs 23:26 My son/daughter give me your heart.
As we journey through life with the Lord Jesus at the very centre of who we are, God continues to work deep within our hearts, leading us into a deeper surrender of our selves to Him. The more you get to know the Lord personally the more you fall in love with Him, for He truly is the most Lovable One. He is a tender, loving, kind Heavenly Father and progressively we are being separated from the world and being brought into a deep heart relationship with Him. To know Him is to love Him. He wants your heart.
Proverbs 3:5 Trust in the Lord with all your hearts.
God is continually working in our lives to win our hearts. He doesn't want just a part of our lives, He wants all your heart and the amazing thing is, is that as you progressively get to know Him, you really just want to trust Him totally, you really want Him to own all of you.
In Mathew 15:1-9 The Lord Jesus was challenging the religious leaders about having a form of religion but not coming to God with their hearts.
Mathew 15:7-8 Jesus said, "Hypocrites (play actors, pretenders)! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying: "These people drew near to Me with their mouth, and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me, and in vain (empty) they worship Me."
The Lord Jesus said of these certain people that they said the right things but it was of no value to God, it was all an empty show, because, "Their heart is far from Me." Until they came to God with all their hearts and became honest and sincere with Him, their worship was in vain, or empty. So the Lord is after our hearts, all our hearts. But when you understand God's agenda and His motive for doing things or allowing certain things to come our way, then we can run to Him with all our hearts and find mercy and grace to help us in the time of every need.
Jeremiah 29:11-13 For I know the plans and thoughts that I have towards you, says the Lord, thoughts and plans of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go a pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.
As we learn to be more and more open in our heart relationship with Him, we learn so much about ourselves. We find that certain things are hindrances.
1. Dishonesty. By this I mean that I have not always realized that certain parts of my heart were not open and honest with God. I had to learn that nothing is ever hidden from God anyway, so not being honest about things in my life was only detrimental to my relationship with Him.
Hebrews 4:13 And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.
Hebrews 3:13 Encourage one another daily, while it is called "Today," lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
Sin can deceive you. Your heart can be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. So we need to be very open and honest with God about sin in our lives. The problem is not sin. Jesus Christ dealt with sin on the cross, where He took our sins on Himself and paid the wages of sin which is death. 2 Peter 2:24 Our sins have been paid for, but, we must stop hiding and pretending there is no sin in our lives. We must be honest with ourselves and honest with God and confess our sins to Him when we see that we have missed the mark. God standard is very high, His standard is perfection. As we must live with an open and honest attitude with the Lord, even when we do stumble and do or say or think the wrong thing, we quickly admit it to ourselves and we run to our Saviour to forgive us and cleanse us.
1 John 16-10 If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light (of His Word and His Spirit), we have fellowship with one another (other believers) and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His Word is not in us.
So don't allow sin to deceive you, keep honest and open with the Lord.
2. Fear can be a secret hindrance. If you believe or feel God may ask something from you that you cannot do, or that you do not want to do, then you may develop a hidden fear of openness with Him. Our enemy the devil plays on these hidden fears fortifying them until they become strongholds of the enemy. But when you understand from the Scriptures that God is a Perfect, loving and wonderful Heavenly Father you will no longer fear anything that He may ask of you. You will be convinced that His plans are wonderful and perfect for you, and the enemy will no longer hold you in bondage to your fears.
1 John1 John 4:8 &18 God is love. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear.
3. Unbelief can be a very real hindrance to your openness with God.
Hebrews 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
If you don't believe that He is good and wonderful and that He so wants to bless you and bring you into a deep heart freedom, then you won't seek Him with all your heart. If you don't believe His written Word and you won't believe His amazing promises then you are hindered in your heart relationship with Him. You will see other Christians being wonderfully blessed and set free and secretly wonder why God seems to overlook your needs. The answer is faith. Faith pleases God, He rewards those who trust Him and seek Him with all their hearts.
Ask Him to lead you deeper in your faith in Jesus. Tell God that you want to be totally open and free in your heart relationship with Him.
If you will remove the hindrances and seek Him with all your heart and then obey Him by walking in the light that He gives you, then you will experience an openness and closeness to God that you never dreamed was possible.
Hebrews 10:22 Let us draw near (to God) with a true (sincere and honest) heart.
Open your heart to God and He will open His heart to you.
Barry Butters (Pastor of Melton Christian Fellowship).