HOW MUCH DOES GOD EXPECT FROM US?

Faith. Heart. Renewed Mind.

with everything else that we can give him.

Have you experienced this? – Writing an exam where you filled two pages as an answer to a question and felt very happy, but finally the teacher marked you less for the answer and made a comment, “you have written a different answer” or “your answer is not satisfactory”? In the same way, we might have answered certain questions in our lives by giving God offerings, alms and talents and felt very happy about it; yet in the end God is not fully pleased.

The answer, actually, lies in the question. If only we had paid more attention to the question, we would have answered it better and scored better marks. Similarly, if we pay attention to what God really desires of us and not just, what we feel like giving Him, we would really do well. God wants us to hit the bull’s-eye and not just the periphery! Offering, alms and talents are the periphery, whereas, faith, heart and a renewed mind are bull’s-eye.

So, the question is, how much does God expect from us?

• MORE THAN MERE WORKS – HE DESIRES FAITH

“For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:20

In this verse, Jesus desires us to be righteous! We know that. We try to attain it on our own strength by giving to the church, by going to Jerusalem, by being baptized in River Jordan, by wearing white clothes, by removing all ornaments.

Our Christian walk should begin and end with faith!

Let me tell you, that’s the wrong answer! This is the righteousness of the Pharisees, which Jesus wants us to surpass. If we think we can please God or receive eternal life through all of this, we will not even enter heaven!

So, how can our righteousness surpass that of the Pharisees?

For the Pharisees, doing good works – like giving to the poor, giving offerings, teaching, and ministry was a full time job. For us, we have our own career. Unlike the 1^st century, in this 21^st century we have to have work, work and work to make our living. It is close to impossible for us to even match up to their good works. However, Jesus wants us to surpass their righteousness. What He wants is our righteousness to be based on faith and not on works. Our Christian walk should begin and end with faith! Many begin well but do not end well. We need faith to enter and continue in his Kingdom. Towards the end of his life, Paul says, ‘I have kept the faith’.

He expects us go to him ‘in faith’ for everything we need, so that we would use the privilege of prayer to receive all good things from Him. We should walk, sit and stand, not in our own strength, not in our wisdom, rather by trusting Jesus. This is important so that every human boasting is cancelled and it will all result only in praise, glory and thanksgiving to God.

It all starts with a mustard seed like faith, which is more than enough to move mountains in your life!

• MORE THAN MERE WORDS OR LOOKS – HE DESIRES THE HEART

I’m sure most of us can testify about how during these COVID-19 times, we have learnt to cook new dishes and bake new stuff. Finally, after all the effort, we look at the sink and utensils have piled up (Husbands, hope you are helping your wives as you enjoy the new meal).  Nevertheless, after all the tiredness and enjoyment, we clean the vessels inside out. Do we only clean the outside and leave the inside dirty? No, we don’t! Yet, somehow, this is what we end up doing with our lives. Clean up on the outside, but leave the inside dirty.

God says, “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.” Mat 15:8-9

We can get so caught up in life and miss the main part. Miss what God really desires from us. We honor God with our words, worship God, follow certain teachings, but we are still not pleasing God. Simply because our hearts are far from Him.

Some of us who are born in Christian families know how to externalize our faith quite well but fail on internalizing it. We can like Christian posts on social media or write something very God-like, talk spiritual and wear good clothes (Saris, Suits, dresses) to church, and still have hearts that are not filled with God.

You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise. Psalms 51:16-17

We honor God with our words, worship God, follow certain teachings, but we are still not pleasing God. Simply because our hearts are far from Him.

David understood this. He earnestly took his heart to the Lord. He prayed seven times a day despite being a King! How much more do we need to pray, guard, and protect our hearts?

Can you offer your hearts to the Lord? Even as you are reading this, can you make a small prayer in your hearts? Praying, ‘Lord I have been bringing things to you, thinking that you would be pleased with it, but have kept the only thing that you desire the most, ‘my heart’ away from you. Today I give it to you completely as an offering. You fill it with yourself! Amen.’

• MORE THAN MERELY KEEPING GOD AS THE LAST RESORT – HE DESIRES A RENEWED MIND

To play in the Indian Cricket team, one needs passion, good health, but most importantly, dedication! They need to give in hours and hours of practice, both on and off-season. You would not find a cricketer, who wants to play international cricket, resting during lockdown. Rather always beating their bodies down and strengthening their muscles, so that when the appointed time comes they are ready and prepared!

If we constantly renew our mind in His word, we will be able to test and approve his pleasing will for our lives. Until then, we will keep rejecting his will.

But, we on the other hand, fill our minds with junk from social media, wrong company, wrong relationships, wrong decisions and then when we get into a mess, we run to God for a breakthrough! Then, we wonder why God is silent and not responding, and go around asking people to pray for us and still nothing happens. It leaves us broken-hearted and hurt. We need to breakout of self-pity and realise that it was never his will.

We tend to do what we like and then try to grapple with God for his will. We cannot twist God’s arm or His word to accomplish our desire! No Shortcuts!

The Word of God says in Romans 12 : 2, ”Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

What we need to do, like a sportsperson, is allow God’s word to dwell in us both in and out of season. Let His word renew us. Stay in that secret place, like the larva that grows into a butterfly inside a cocoon. If we constantly renew our mind in His word, we will be able to test and approve his pleasing will for our lives. Until then, we will keep rejecting his will.

Take time to read your Bible, and you will be a changed man!

God wants us to hit the bull’s-eye and not just the periphery! Offering, alms and talents are the periphery, whereas, faith, heart and a renewed mind are bull’s-eye.

Is what we are offering to God and what He actually desires, the same?

We don’t mind giving God our offering, alms and talents. Yet, for God, there is something more precious – our faith, heart and a renewed mind. Can you offer these to God by not neglecting the former? This is how much God expects from us.

If we do this, then we won’t struggle in our giving, then we will be a pleasing living sacrifice to God. And, then we will be able to give more and more and not feel bad but blessed!

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HEART – CHECK: Where is it placed?

Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life

_{Proverbs 4:23}

Written by Reeba Elizabeth Royce

Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. Psalms 139:23-24

This is a prayer of King David asking God to search him and know his heart, to test him so that his anxious thoughts and offensive ways would come to light. And, in the end, he would be led to God, to Jesus who is the everlasting way. This prayer that David prayed is not an easy prayer but a dangerous one. Yet, why would he, who is a king, have to pray about something as minor as the matters of his heart? Well, it is no wonder that He was called a man after God’s own heart. A man who kept his heart in check, in alignment with God was indeed reckoned to become a man after God’s heart. That is why we too must ask God to uncover the things deep in our hearts and lead us in His ways. This prayer is coming to a place where you are asking God to break you, redirect you and completely surrender yourself to allow God’s plan to unfold in your lives. To do this no matter how uncomfortable you might feel at that moment. So, what are these matters of our heart that we need to keep in check with God?

This prayer that David prayed is not an easy prayer but a dangerous one… it is about coming to a place where you are asking God to break you, redirect you and completely surrender yourself to allow God’s plan to unfold in your lives.

MATTERS OF THE HEART

• THE HEART IS DECEITFUL ABOVE ALL THINGS

The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? – Jeremiah 17:9.

Without Christ all of us are wicked, our hearts are deceitful. And because of this, there are so many times that our hearts not only deceive others but also ourselves.

God is always thoughtful and more concerned about your heart than your deeds, appearance or other worldly statuses. Which is why, we constantly see in scripture, God asks His people to return to Him with all of their hearts. In Matthew 9:4, we find Jesus who knowing the thoughts of the teachers of the law, asked them, ‘why are you entertaining evil thoughts in your hearts?’ Christ observes whether your concerns are worldly or if your concerns are of the Father.

• THE HEART CAN BE WEIGHED DOWN

A heavy and weighed down heart will entrap you. It is important to always be on the guard, alert, prayerful and to hide God’s word in your heart so that you might not be weighed down by sin and anxieties of this world.

Jesus said to his disciples in Luke 21 : 34-36, “Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness and the anxieties of life and that day will close on you suddenly like a trap. For it will come on all those who live on the face of the earth. Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen and that you may be able to stand before the Son of man“.

While it is important to know the matters of our heart, it is imperative to keep them in check and identify whether our hearts are aligned to God. So there are two places your heart can be – in the right place or in the wrong place.

A heart that is set in the right place is a heart that places God first before and above all things.

God commanded us, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” (Deuteronomy 6 : 5)

God wants us to love Him with our all. If there is anything in your life right now that is taking God’s place, you will definitely see the symptoms. Closely examine yourself and you will find them lurking around. It is just like a disease that shows symptoms and needs to be treated. Managing or treating the symptom will cure the disease. Likewise, when your heart does not give God the first place, deceitfulness in all forms are exhibited  – lust, anger, hatred, idolatry, selfish-ambition, bitterness, drunkenness, orgies, jealousy and the like.

A heart that is set in the right place is a heart that places God first before and above all things.

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What is your response when you find yourself in an uncomfortable or unfavourable situation? Your response will speak a lot about where your heart is placed. It will show whether your heart is with God or something/someone else.

For example, being recognised for your work and being appreciated or even promoted is a desire, which is not wrong in itself. But what happens when your colleague who sits beside your desk, who did not work as much as you did or does not have enough experience as you do, gets what you wanted? Seems unfair, isn’t it? But, check your first response to it, and you will determine where your heart is really placed.

Do you isolate yourself from others? Boast about your vain efforts and complain about your misfortune, even demonizing the colleague who got what you wanted? If yes, you know you are being jealous. Jealousy is clearly an act of the flesh, which contradicts the Spirit of God in you. It stops you from being happy about the success of others. Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 13 : 4 “..love does not envy”. So what really is the root cause of this symptom, ‘jealousy’? Well, It all began when you somewhere along the way placed the job first in your heart. That is why when the job failed you, you ended up being frustrated – leading to jealousy, anger and so on. Remember, the Bible says in Proverbs 13:12, “Hope deferred can make a heart sick”. Beloved, God has positioned you exactly where you need to be. He is an exceptionally good gardener.

Let’s take a look at the lives of two men mentioned – King Saul and King David – in 1 Samuel 17, when Israel was faced with death threats made by the Philistine giant ‘Goliath’.

When this nine feet tall champion of the Philistines, who not only defied Israel’s army but also our God’s name, threatened King Saul, his response along with all the Israelites was dismay and terror. While King David, who was a little shepherd boy with zero experience in war, went boldly in name of the Lord declaring that God is going to deliver the philistines into his hands. Two men, both anointed by the Lord our God, had two different responses, one who trusted and inquired of the Lord and other who did not. When the men were returning home after David had killed the Philistine, the women of Israel came out from all towns and sang, “Saul has slain his thousands and David his tens of thousands. Saul was very angry; this refrain displeased him greatly (1 Samuel 18:6-8). King Saul, who should have been a spiritual father to David, became envious of him. Clearly, King Saul’s heart did not have Godly concerns, because he placed himself first before God. While David, a small child, boldly faced the giant in the name of the Lord because his heart was in the right place.

This is what the God says in Jeremiah 17:7-8, “Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.”  

The root of sin and idolatry of your heart is directly proportional to not trusting in the Lord.

And, on the contrary, what happens when a heart is not in the right place? God says, that person will be like a bush in the wastelands, will not see prosperity when it comes and will dwell in parched places in the desert, in the salt and where no one lives (Jeremiah 17:5-6).

When your heart is set on things of this world and people, you will be left empty because everything in this world is imperfect and temporary. The root of sin and idolatry of your heart is directly proportional to not trusting in the Lord.

Choose Him to be the King of your heart, because He will never leave you brokenhearted, hopeless and frustrated.

Let us constantly check our hearts and place it in the right place with God. Be right before the Lord our maker, our King and then everything will fall in place.

The question that remains is, ‘why should I give all of my heart to Jesus?’

Well, Jesus loves you more than a mother could love her child, which is why He paid the ransom for us. He was innocent and blameless yet punished for us, because He wanted, wants and will always want us to be by His side eternally. He always has you on His mind. Even on the cross, when He willingly gave Himself up, His heart was full of you. In that moment of excruciating pain, all He wanted was to be the bridge connecting you to Abba Father, whom now because of Jesus’ sacrifice and resurrection, can be called our Abba too. So, let us give all of our heart to our Lord our saviour, Jesus Christ.

Because nothing or no one in this universe deserves our heart more than He does. God knows we cannot have two masters. So choose him to be the king of your heart, because he will never leave you brokenhearted, hopeless and frustrated.

If this post touched your heart and changed your life, share it with friends and family