April 20, 2004

To be led by the Spirit means that you follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, who speaks to your spirit.  But to do something with your whole heart means that your spirit and soul is united together towards a certain end.  It means that your whole being—spirit, soul and body work together to bring something about.

When you do something with your whole heart there is a passion, a determination and a commitment to see the thing through to the end.  You can listen to your spirit, where God speaks and still not have the will and determination to obey.  Our spirit receives gifting and guidance.  Our spirit receives direction and vision.  But we’ve got to unite our spirit with our soul—with our mind, emotions and will—if we are going to have the determination necessary to follow through with it.

"Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) are they who keep His testimonies, and who seek, inquire for and of Him and crave Him with the whole heart."  Psalm 119:2 The Amplified Bible

Do we seek God and inquire for Him with our whole heart?  Do we inquire of Him with our whole heart?  Do we crave Him with our whole heart?  This is the kind of pursuit of Him we will have if we are pursuing Him with our heart.  We will have more than knowledge of Him and knowledge of His will for us.  We will also have a desire and determination to love, worship and obey Him.

What are you passionate about?  What things in your life are you willing to stick with and put up with a little inconvenience in order to see them through?  Maybe you have a hobby—you like to sew, you like to build things, you like to play some kind of sport.  Whatever it is you are willing to do what is necessary to get the result you desire.  You have to practice, to study, to put in a certain amount of time, spend some money etc.  Because you enjoy that hobby so much you are willing to spend something in order to have the time to enjoy it.  Are we that passionate about the things of God?  Do we love Him, His presence, His Word and His fellowship so much that we are willing to spend something in order to be able to enjoy Him?

The reason we haven’t pursued Him as much as some of the other things we enjoy is because we haven’t really discovered the joy of His presence.  Think about this—If you enjoy golf but all you ever did was read about golf or watch other people golf or talk about golf then you would never know the pleasure of playing golf yourself would you?  In the same way, if we just read about God, watch other people enjoy God or just talk about God then we’re not really enjoying Him ourselves.  But once you’ve played golf and experienced the joy of it then you will enjoy reading, watching and talking about it.  And once we’ve truly experienced the joy of fellowshipping with God then we too will enjoy reading, watching and talking about Him more.

To develop a passion for something, we’ve got to know the joy of it.  You don’t crave something unless you’ve had it before.  If we are going to crave God like it says in Psalm 119:2 then we’ve got to first experience the joy of Him.  How?  Ask.  Begin to seek Him.  You will find Him.  And don’t stop until you discover the joy of finding Him.  And somewhere along the way as you find Him you will find His will for your life, which will give you the greatest joy you’ve ever known.