God Desires Our Hearts Series

God desires our Hearts

Have you ever had trouble communicating or figuring out exactly what it is that someone wants? I remember when our children were infants several times experiencing the frustration of trying to figure out what it was they were crying for and reaching for and nothing we offered them satisfied their desire. Many times we would say, “If you could only talk and tell me what you want.” Our hearts would be grieving over not being able to understand their desires.

When it comes to knowing and understanding what God wants, I’m fairly certain that it is not nearly as hard as some of our other experiences because we have the written Word of God that tells us exactly what it is that God wants and desires from us and for us. The next three weeks, God willing, I want to explore together what it is that God wants. Today, let’s talk about the fact that God desires our Hearts.

I make that statement with a fair amount of conviction, but I want to establish this in your minds as well, that God really does desire your heart. He desires a relationship with you because He created you for that! There is no better place to determine that than from His own words first recorded in Deuteronomy chapter 5 verse 28. Here Moses has been giving the people the Ten Commandments, and as God speaks you can hear the desire of His heart. “The Lord heard you when you spoke to me, said Moses, and the Lord said to me, ‘I have heard what this people said to you. Everything they said was good. Oh, that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my commands always, so that it might go well with them and their children forever!’”

Can you see the desire of God’s heart for His people’s hearts? We know from Scriptures that God loves us. We know it so well that we take it for granted, it’s not that big of a deal to us anymore – but I tell you this morning that God’s love for us is a deep desire for our hearts to be redeemed, restored and renewed.

You see we have the verse from John 3:16 memorized – “For God so loved the world He gave His only Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but shall have eternal life.” So we know that He loves us, but did you ever realize that love causes Him to think about you? Psalms 40: 5,17; Psalms 138: 17; Jeremiah 29:11 all tell us that He thinks about us so often we cannot count, and that He is planning a great future for us. And not only does He love us and think about us, but He is currently, right now, today, praying and interceding for us. Hebrews 7:25; Romans 8:26, 34; I John 2:1.

Now as we examine this matter this morning, let us first understand that

1. Our Hearts Need to be Redeemed

a. Because, without God, our hearts are wicked. Ever since the Garden of Eden and Eve and Adam chose to exercise their free will to disobey, humanity has had the very same choice. God created us and desires a relationship with us, but we are born with a nature of sin that causes us to go our own way so our hearts are, as it says in Jeremiah 17:9, “desperately wicked and deceitful,” before we are redeemed. Now we don’t like to think about that very much, but we know it intimately. Parents see it very quickly in the hearts of their children from an early age. If you don’t have children and you want to see this for yourself, just spend some time in Wal-Mart and you’ll see some original sin. ;-)

2 Peter 2 :14 says, …”they have trained their hearts for greed..”

Heberew 3:12, “See to it that none of you has an evil and unbelieving heart.”

You say, Pastor, I know what it looks like in a little child, but what does it look like in my life? I tell you that if you are continually struggling with deception and dishonesty, showing hatred or unkindness to those around you, are greedy, jealous or prideful, then you are dealing with an unredeemed heart. Christ Himself tells us in three of the New Testament gospels, that “what comes out of men’s hearts are evil thoughts, immorality, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, slander, envy, theft, arrogance,” etc. It is more important to know Christ than to call yourself a Christian. The label alone will not save you. And you cannot know Christ unless you first have a redeemed heart.

b. And God seeks our redemption

In spite of our nature and our wrong choices, we read and understand that God still loves us. Jeremiah 31: 3 says, “I have loved you with an everlasting love…” Romans says, “while we were yet sinners, He died FOR US…”