I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes and be careful to obey My rules. Ezekiel 36:25-27 ESV
God knows that before people can change their ways, they must change their hearts. There must be a revelation of His heart if we are to follow Him with purity and power. When our hearts are cluttered with compromise and sin, there is no room to embrace the depths of His love or understand His intense passion for us as His people. He’s rarely asked His people to trust a plan – only to follow His heart.
As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in My love. (John 15:9)
It is because of this major heart issue that God is doing a deep cleansing work within His Church. False gods and idols of men have become fixtures in His house and they will only lose their influence and power when His people want them to. So, He is going after our hearts – the seat of our desires and passions – the place where our will is fueled. It is from our heart that all issues of life proceed (Proverbs 4:23). And it is only from our heart that we are fully able to follow for love. Thus, we must trade our hearts for His, and learn what it really means to be a person after His own heart.
The Lord has sought out a man after His own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be prince over His people. (1 Samuel 13:14)
Note that it is God’s heart that is the priority. It’s not just pursuing His mind or His laws – but His heart. Not His methods or even His plans – but His heart. So, what is in His heart that makes it such a priority?
I believe in our religious mindsets we have focused so much on keeping His commands and doing the “right thing,” we have forgotten that God has a heart – and He FEELS. Deeply. His heart contains His emotions – and yes, He has them. Whether we call them expressions of His Spirit or an overflow of His nature, God feels deeply and passionately about what He does. He is never passive – about anything or anyone. He is a God who expresses Himself in countless ways and longs for His people to know the depths of His passion. Scripture reveals just how deeply God feels about the issues of life.
He is full of compassion (Micah 7:18-19) and yet has extreme hatred for sin (Proverbs 6:16).
He is jealous for His own (Deuteronomy 4:24) and grieves deeply when rejected (Psalm 78:40).
He rejoices without hesitation (Jeremiah 32:41) and laughs at His enemies (Proverbs 1:26).
He expresses His fierce anger towards the wicked (Isaiah 10:5) and yet has great pity on the oppressed (Judges 2:18).
He acts with intention and is never flippant (Amos 4:12).
Everything God says and does flows from the depths of His heart. Because He loves – passionately and intensely. And if we are to become a nation that follows after God in truth and righteousness, we must first pursue His heart. We must allow Him to change our motivations and fully embrace what inspires and incites Him to move. Thankfully, He has already given us an example to follow.
He raised up David to be their king, of whom He testified and said, ‘I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after My heart, who will do all My will.’ Acts 13:22
Of all the godly kings and rulers through the ages, God chose David as the gold standard for knowing His heart and passion. A man who made mistakes and openly sinned against the Lord, but was the apple of God’s eye (Psalm 17:8). David consistently repented of his sins when confronted. But, this wasn’t the primary reason he captured God’s attention.
David was a passionate lover. He felt things earnestly and profoundly. His convictions did not just stem from knowing the laws of God, but from knowing the heart of God and what moved Him. David pursued the depths of God’s heart and was uniquely in touch with His passion. Any purity David possessed was not in his morality but in his intimacy with the Lord. He constantly pined for a deep connection with His God. Even when faced with God’s severe judgment for his sins, David’s first response was to simply draw closer.
God so loved David’s pursuit of Him that He made David’s prayer journal the longest book in the Bible. God wanted us to experience the depth of David’s longings, hopes, and all that he felt as he pursued this place of deep “knowing.”
The biblical narrative reveals a man of fierce intensity of soul that was repeatedly laid bare. David was vulnerable. He allowed himself to feel. He was consistently drawn to the Lord’s heart because it was there he found a depth of understanding he found nowhere else. When troubled, it was God’s heart that pulled David out of the pit and into a secure place of trust. God ministered to David’s soul. And God relished David’s pursuit.
You have given me relief when I was in distress…You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound….In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety. Psalm 4
God has not stopped looking for hearts like David. He is looking to and fro for those who are willing to risk vulnerability and bare their soul without fear. He longs to heal many hearts in this season and go after the hidden recesses of our souls to make room for a heart exchange.
He is coming to give His people a new heart and a new spirit with which to truly know Him and declare His holiness in the land. He is reclaiming His people by offering a heart transplant in order to become vessels of His very own heart and passion.
And I will vindicate the holiness of My great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God when through you I vindicate My holiness before their eyes. (Ezekiel 36:23)
He has promised to come with vindication. Not only to bring justice to those oppressed but to turn hardened hearts of stone into hearts of flesh that are totally yielded to the cries of His heart. He longs for a people who, like David, have sought His heart and are inspired to act, not because they have to, but because they want to. Out of the depths of His passion.
It is to this end God continues to pursue us. It is to this end He will be relentless in drawing us to the deep places of the soul so we can find healing and hope. May we desire to know His passion, even more than His plan. May we embrace this work so He can free our hearts to become conduits of His. Herein lies our redemption, and herein lies His glory.
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