by David Brenneman
"He did right in the sight of the Lord, yet not with a whole heart." 2 Chronicles 25:2.
"Then the people rejoiced because they had offered so willingly, for they made their offering to the Lord with a whole heart, and King David also rejoiced greatly." 1 Chronicles 29:9.
"I will give them a heart to know Me, for I am the Lord; and they will be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to Me with their whole heart." Jeremiah 24:7.
“Remember now, O Lord, I beseech You, how I have walked before You in truth and with a whole heart and have done what is good in Your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly." 2 Kings 20:3.
"How blessed are those who observe His testimonies, Who seek Him with all their heart." Psalms 119:2.
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart And do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes; Fear the Lord and turn away from evil." Proverbs 3:5-7.
"O let the evil of the wicked come to an end, but establish the righteous; For the righteous God tries the hearts and minds." Psalms 7:9.
"O Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thought from afar. You scrutinize my path and my lying down, And are intimately acquainted with all my ways. Even before there is a word on my tongue, Behold, O Lord, You know it all. You have enclosed me behind and before, And laid Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is too high, I cannot attain to it. Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me. If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, And the light around me will be night,” Even the darkness is not dark to You, And the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You. For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Your book were all written The days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was not one of them. How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand. When I awake, I am still with You." Psalms 139:1-18.
Oh to count the verses that speak of the heart. The truth of the story of the Bible as a whole is the love story between our God and humanity.
It begins and ends with the heart.
“Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. The good man brings out of his good treasure what is good; and the evil man brings out of his evil treasure what is evil. But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” Matthew 12:33-37.
"After He called the crowd to Him again, He began saying to them, “Listen to Me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside the man which can defile him if it goes into him; but the things which proceed out of the man are what defile the man. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.” When he had left the crowd and entered the house, His disciples questioned Him about the parable. And He said to them, “Are you so lacking in understanding also? Do you not understand that whatever goes into the man from outside cannot defile him, because it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach, and is eliminated?” (Thus He declared all foods clean.) And He was saying, “That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man.” Mark 7:14-23.
But what of that title that you began this post with? Where does that come from?
My Dear Reader...Jesus wants your whole heart. Not the goody two shoes version that we display for others let alone what we think we are giving to Jesus to use as He sees fit. All of it. Every secret room, every hidden box, every...single...part.
To get that in the hearts of men and women requires our everything every single day. It involves retrospective looking. That is, looking back on or dealing with past events or situations. We can deceive ourselves into thinking Jesus has our all. We can look at the battles we face that we don't seem to gain any victory in. We can look at the relationships that are still a puzzle to us. We can look at what the real underlying truth is about us as to why we aren't growing in Christ as we should have been by now.
It calls for us to pray that Jesus does whatever He deems necessary to know Him more. This means praying for that which Jesus wants. All of our hearts. Not the spit n polished parts that we offer but all those places where sin still is doing a number on us.
Pray for Jesus to bust down the walls and kick in the doors of those places in our hearts to destroy that which still has a hold on us.
Scripture says that our lives are not our own, that we were bought with a price, the shed blood of Jesus Christ. If we say we belong to Christ then He should get all of us.
This prayer for this busting down walls and kicking in the doors way of saying it came to me a few days ago in dealing with some things that have confounded me and frustrated me my whole Christian life. It was personal when Jesus went to the cross to die for us, to go through all of that, to rise from the dead conquering all sin. He set the standard of obedience.
Simply put...we all have pride issues in thinking that there's some things in our spiritual battles that we're going to handle. So these places in our hearts become snares. Traps.
Jesus should have all of your heart. King David was known as a man after God's own heart. Much of what we read in the book of Psalms is the struggles, the battles, of David's surrender of his heart.
In the Old Testament we read stories of people who figured out how to give themselves prestige by securing a place in what once was a storeroom in the house of the Lord. The prophet came back and found such happening and threw all their stuff out. The whole Temple belongs to God. We are to be the temple of God in Christ Jesus. The Spirit of God resides in each and every single Believer. But...it is still upon us to surrender all.
There's a great hymn by that name. I Surrender All. As someone once said all means all and that's all that all means.
My Dear Reader be truthful with yourself. To be honest, until that way of saying it, that is in the title of this post, I had places in me that I had stubbornly kept trying to figure out how to fight on my own and time after time kept losing. Sometimes in ever increasingly worse ways.
Pray that Jesus has your whole heart. Even if you think you have given Him all of it, pray for that anyway. Pray for Him to destroy any part of your heart that you might have deceived yourself into thinking that He didn't need to deal with. Pray that you surrender all to Jesus.
All to Jesus I surrender,
All to Him I freely give;
I will ever love and trust Him,
In His presence daily live.
I surrender all, I surrender all;
All to Thee, my blessed Savior,
I surrender all.
All to Jesus I surrender,
Make me, Savior, wholly Thine;
Let me feel Thy Holy Spirit,
Truly know that Thou art mine.
I surrender all, I surrender all;
All to Thee, my blessed Savior,
I surrender all.
All to Jesus I surrender,
Lord, I give myself to Thee;
Fill me with Thy love and power,
Let Thy blessing fall on me.
I surrender all, I surrender all;
All to Thee, my blessed Savior,
I surrender all.
All to Jesus I Surrender, 1896. Judson W. Van DeVenter.
All NASB Scripture Excerpts used by permission.
New American Standard Bible
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