May 14, 2010 God Looks on the Heart

“Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the LORD does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” 1 Samuel 16:7  I am so very glad that God looks at the heart, and that when He looks at me, He sees Jesus, and me in Him.  After reading this part of Saul's sad, sad story, I was very grateful to read of Jesus' mercy with the woman caught in adultery.  He saw a heart of repentance.  If there had been true repentance in Saul, he would have been accepted. 

No amount of bargaining with God can bring about a truce with Him; only accepting His way, and that Way is Christ.  But His love covers a multitude of sins-- things that couldn't be wiped out with any amount of tears or efforts at restitution.  We need Him.  We need to fear Him and obey Him, which can be hard until we know Him better.  Once we know His love, we would go through flames of utter destruction to get close to His heart.

Samuel was still learning lessons about discernment and seeing the heart, not just hearing words or seeing masks.  Jesus quoted what the Lord said to him, too, about not judging by appearances.  We need to know that God sees our heart: there's nothing we can hide from Him, but there's also nothing that God is hiding from us.  If we want to know Him, He is more than willing to reveal Himself to us.

I have never been the person the world would choose (funny, but I was really the proverbial person no one wanted on their sports team, at least until later on in highschool), and you probably aren't either.  But that's OK, because God chooses us.  He loved us before we knew Him, called us and accepted us.  I don't want to be unchosen for the things He's called me to do.  That keeps me on the straight and narrow.  He's not going to entrust anything to me if I'm untrustworthy.  I'm glad though, that He's not going to "unchoose me" from being His child, or "unfriend me" because I mess up.  He knows my weaknesses, and He helps me (and disciplines me sometimes).  Jesus said He'd never leave us or forsake us.  We would have to totally reject Him and leave Him completely to end up like Saul, which is, I guess, what Saul did.  I'd much rather be the one on the healing end of the harp than the one with a tormenting spirit because I rejected the Spirit of God.