After Saul had ruled forty years, God removed him from office and put King David in his place, with this commendation: “I've searched the land and found this David, son of Jesse. He's a man whose heart beats to my heart, a man who will do what I tell him,” (Acts 13:22 The Message).
I love the way The Message bible portrays this scripture saying that David’s heart beats to the Lord’s heart. I honestly cannot wrap my mind around the entire concept. To have my own heart perfectly in rhythm with God’s most pure and holy heart seems unimaginable. Yet, God is searching the earth for believers who are trying to catch hold of this rhythm. Reading on in the rest of this scripture we find that David’s heart matched the Lord’s because he was willing to do whatever the Lord asked of him. When is the last time you heard the Lord ask you to do something for him? How did you respond?
I can think of many occasions in my life where God asked something of me. He’s constantly speaking to his church and asking us to move on his behalf. I believe God is looking for a body of believers who will not only be sensitive enough to hear God, but to be passionate enough to obey even when it hurts.
Right after Jeremy and I were married, we moved to Indianapolis, Indiana where he had been offered an accounting job. We were young and looking for a place of worship to call home. Both of us were raised in the Church of God of Prophecy denomination, so we sought out to find a local church in the area that fell under the same covering. After arriving late (because we were lost) we entered what I can only describe as an old brick building buried in the heart of the city. Upon entering, we quickly discovered that we were the only people under the age of 55 in the building! Not exactly what we pictured for our first home church as newlyweds. But God spoke and moved on our hearts that this was where he wanted us to be.
We served in that local church for a little over two years before accepting God’s call in our lives to move to Somerset and join the HPC family. But those two years were some of the most spiritually formative years of my life. There were nights that I cried myself to sleep asking God, “why on earth is this where you’ve called us?” And he would simply say back, “This is where I want you.” On the outside, my flesh could see no good in the situation. But God knew that we had much to learn in ministry, so he answered our prayers of speeding along the process by increasing the need for sacrifice on our end.
Looking back, I could go into numerous stories of God’s unfailing love and mercy that we received during that season of our lives. But to speed things along I’ll simply say this, “It was worth every minute!” We learned that by being obedient to the Father we were aligning our hearts with his heart and growing closer and closer to him daily. It came with a price of laying down our own desires for his, but the payoff was beyond anything I could ever imagine! Lessons learned that only come through hard times, perseverance, and learning to completely rely on God.
Today you can make a decision to live your life obeying the voice of the Holy Spirit. When he knocks on the door of your heart, open it wide and let him in! The more we allow him to enter in, the more he can change us and mold our hearts to his heart. My prayer is that as God searches the earth that he would stop and say, “There is Higher Praise Church! A church after my own heart…a congregation that will do whatever I ask of them.” I believe as we seek to follow God’s heart that a new sound will rise from our worship and we will find ourselves exchanging our sound for God’s sound.
My Prayer:
Jesus, today help me to be sensitive to your Holy Spirit. When you speak, give me courage to obey. When I see an easy way out, help me to take the challenging path where you can shape me into the person you want me to become. As I take that path, let my heart become one with yours. Let my life seek to bring you glory. Amen.
Don’t forget about service tonight at HPC @ 7:00pm CST. Let’s go after the heartbeat of God!
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