God wants our whole heart

I listened to a message from Matt Chandler of the Village Church recently. The guy is very challenging to listen to because he doesn’t sugarcoat his messages with lots of prosperity preaching and feelgood stuff. He puts God right in your face, sells out and expects his congregation to as well and doesn’t care if he offends some people. I do recommend you take a listen to him though.

Last week he talked about God wanting our WHOLE heart. He likened some christian relationships to us working for God. So when God starts to deal with us on certain “delicate” matters, we would rather go setup a small group than give that delicate piece up or deal with it.

I can totally raise my hand and say that is me. There are times that my heart hits a spot that isn’t quite “right” with God and rather deal with it then I would rather go teach a class or do some extra IT stuff at church or whatever, just to get off the subject almost. I think we tend to do that with each other in general, but if we treat God the same way we treat people where this is concerned, we will miss out. I think God wants all of us so he can bless us to the best of his ability and can’t do that if we aren’t totally sold out to him.

Sure, he will bless us but how much better will it be if we are totally up front with him and have all our imperfections out on the table. He already knows what they are and no way would I say this is and easy process for anyone. Totally the opposite and I think it gets harder as we get older.

I believe as we grow spiritually and get used to being “around God” for lack of a better phrase , the relationship will grow not unlike that of a good friend. The difference is that from the get-go God loves us so much that he longs to have this relationship with us and we are the ones that have to grow towards him.

Deuteronomy 7:7-8 says:
The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but because the Lord loved you and kept the oath which He swore to your forefathers, the LORD brought you out by a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. .

There are a million verses telling us how much he loves us and wants to have a relationship with us. I would pray that God softens us as human beings to open up to him in all things.

Peace.