“Teach me Your way, O LORD; I will walk in Your truth; Unite my heart to fear Your name. I will praise You, O Lord my God, with all my heart, and I will glorify Your name forevermore.” Psalms 86:11-12
When the Lord decided to replace Saul as king, He spoke to him through the prophet Samuel: “But now your kingdom shall not continue. The LORD has sought for Himself a man after His own heart…because you have not kept what the LORD commanded you.” (1 Sam. 13:14).
The Lord had already found David, a man after His own heart, whom He would later anoint king over Israel (1 Sam. 16; Psa. 89:20). Years later, Paul recounts the event in Antioch of Pisidia: “I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after my own heart, WHO WILL DO ALL MY WILL.” (Acts 13:22).
The heart is our innermost being, the control center of our thoughts, emotions and desires. It influences our will, what we choose to do. Sadly, the human heart has been damaged by sin. Jeremiah 17:9 says: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; Who can know it?” Though the believer is a new creation in Christ, our sin nature remains and still adversely affects us. It is only through abiding in Christ, that we can have the divine enablement to wholeheartedly serve the Lord according to His will. What characterizes one who is a man (or woman) after God’s own heart?
The all-encompassing attribute is a zeal for Christ through our knowledge of Him. David testified: “One thing I have desired of the LORD, that will I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to inquire in His temple” (Psa. 27:4). Moses and Paul also joined David in expressing a holy desire to intimately know the Lord (Exo. 33:12-18; Phil. 3:10). Do we follow their example, spending time in His Word and prayer? Do we hunger for an intimate fellowship with Him? Its realization is contingent upon knowing and zealously obeying His Word (John 14:21-23).
Moreover, fruitful service is built upon the foundation of our love for Christ. When restoring and commissioning Peter, the Lord asked him three times “Do you love Me?” (John 21:15-17). Our love for Him will understandably develop into a growing revelation of Christ in our lives as we commit to being doers of His Word. Paul desired that his ministry and life be a: “manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God” (2 Cor. 4:2). Do we have the same desire to accurately reflect Christ and His interests during our sojourn on earth?
A man after God’s own heart diligently watches over his own heart (Prov. 4:23) because he knows “For as he thinks in his heart, so is he” (Prov. 23:7), and “As water reflects the face, so one’s life reflects the heart.” (Prov. 27:19, NIV). He is blameless, confessing and forsaking sin before the searching eyes of Christ (Heb. 4:13). His heart’s cry is “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psa. 139:23-24).
He is also lion-hearted, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (2 Tim. 1:7). Yet, he is humble before God, exalting His Savior “…who humbled Himself…” (Phil. 2:8; Jas. 4:6; 1 Pet. 5:6). He has a heart for the lost because the Lord is “not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9). His heart is also lovingly and practically knit with the saints because all believers in Christ are “beloved of God” (Rom. 1:7; 1 John 3:16) and to receive them is to receive Christ (Matt. 10:40).
In his charge to Solomon, David said: “As for you, my son Solomon, know the God of your father, and serve Him with a whole heart and a willing mind; for the LORD searches all hearts…” (1 Chron. 28:9, NASB). Do we have the hearts that He is looking for?