What is your heart's desire?
July Reading: Psalm 1-31 {Read a Psalm a day}
July Memory Chunk: Psalm 1:1-3
Prayer Requests go here.
"May He give you the desires of your heart and make all your plans succeed." Psalm 20:4
We all love this particular verse in Psalm. Perhaps, this is your first time reading it. What's not to love about it, right?
There's not a woman in the world that doesn't want the desires of her heart met, and to top it all off, for all of her plans to succeed.
However, when we read the Word of God, we must look at the whole counsel of God's Word. We cannot just pick and choose the verses we prefer and build our foundation upon that verse.
This can be dangerous.
We must ask daily for God's wisdom when reading scripture.
For example, just looking at this verse, it would seem that God will give you everything your heart ever wants, your every desire. On a silver platter.
This is not true.
The truth is that God is sovereign. His will overrides ours, and it should.
Thank Heaven all of my heart's desires over my lifetime haven't been granted. Goodness knows where I would be!
We must build our desires around Him. He should be our one true desire.
When David wrote this Psalm, this was David's desire. Yes, David wanted God's favor, His Wisdom, His blessing. But, the one thing that David desired most was God.
Read on a little further in Psalms and you will find this prayer of David's:
One thing I ask from the LORD, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple. Psalm 27:4
God was David's one true desire. His life was a testament to this. Yes, he made mistakes, big ones. But David's heart was devoted to God in a profound way.
Surely because of David's greatest desire being God, it made his heart change. In fact, scripture even tell us this.
"After removing Saul, he made David their king. God testified concerning him: 'I have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.' Acts 13:22
When God becomes our greatest desire, our own desires change.
His desires become our desires.
As we drove down to the beach a couple of days ago, I had a ball of yarn in my lap, a gold crochet hook in my right hand, and my trusty little "how-to-crochet-the-easy-way" book squeezed next to the yarn in my lap.
I spent the entire car ride, all 5 1/2 hours, trying to learn a new craft. The thing about crocheting, is that you have to start a foundation row first. Everything is built upon and around your foundation row.
Each time I started building on my foundation row trying a different kind of stitch, I would end up ripping it right back out. Back down to the foundation row.
Sometimes I would think I really had something going, and then bam, I had messed up somewhere and gotten off track with my rows. This would leave big holes in the pattern I was trying to make.
The Lord kept reminding me as I stitched, that our faith walk is like this foundation row.
He is the Foundation.
We can make beautiful, intricate things when we are stitched into Him, our Foundation.
However, we can also get way off track, and end up dangerously far from our Foundation. {kind of like my crocheting looks sometimes!}
When we look at the whole counsel of God's Word and see what Jesus commanded us to do, we have instructions for staying stitched into God's foundation.
"Jesus replied: “'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Matthew 22:36-40
Breaking it down, Jesus teaches us that the greatest commandment He has given us is this:
To Love God, and to Love others.
The end.
Wow!
How simple is this?
Yet, how hard is this.
We get away from our foundation when these two things are not being lived out.
When these two things are not stitched firmly into the foundation of our lives, oh girls, everything will start falling apart. Just like my crochet project.
We can even be doing some seemingly "good" things and be far from our Foundation if those "good" things are not stitched in love.
Girls, we don't have to be hyper-spiritual and full of biblical knowledge to get this.
We need to Love God first.
We need to Love others second.
Who needs love today, friends?
My children could care less how much biblical knowledge I have. All they really want is for me to love them. That's it. That's the greatest way I can show them Christ.
Let's don't fool ourselves into thinking that others are swayed by our love and devotion to Jesus. They are only swayed by our love for Jesus when it's poured out onto them.
The world doesn't care about how much quiet time we have, how many bible studies we attend or teach, or how many scriptures we have memorized.
The world craves the Love of God. Oh, and how the world needs the Love of God.
Love is what will draw their hearts to His.
So, bottom line....
Do you want God to give you the desires of your heart? Do you want your plans to succeed?
Stay on the firm foundation of Christ by....
Loving God.
Loving those around you.
Your plans will succeed, because those are His plans for you.
How do we start?
Make it a daily prayer that God will help you to Love Him first, and Love others second. Before anything else, ask Him to make this your life mission. Ask Him to keep you stitched tightly into the firm foundation of His Love in every single thing you do.
Girls, He will fulfill this desire of you heart. In ways that you cannot even imagine.
staying stitched to Him,
jill
July Memory Chunk: Psalm 1:1-3
Prayer Requests go here.
New to SHINE? Go here.
"May He give you the desires of your heart and make all your plans succeed." Psalm 20:4
We all love this particular verse in Psalm. Perhaps, this is your first time reading it. What's not to love about it, right?
There's not a woman in the world that doesn't want the desires of her heart met, and to top it all off, for all of her plans to succeed.
However, when we read the Word of God, we must look at the whole counsel of God's Word. We cannot just pick and choose the verses we prefer and build our foundation upon that verse.
This can be dangerous.
We must ask daily for God's wisdom when reading scripture.
For example, just looking at this verse, it would seem that God will give you everything your heart ever wants, your every desire. On a silver platter.
This is not true.
The truth is that God is sovereign. His will overrides ours, and it should.
Thank Heaven all of my heart's desires over my lifetime haven't been granted. Goodness knows where I would be!
We must build our desires around Him. He should be our one true desire.
When David wrote this Psalm, this was David's desire. Yes, David wanted God's favor, His Wisdom, His blessing. But, the one thing that David desired most was God.
Read on a little further in Psalms and you will find this prayer of David's:
One thing I ask from the LORD, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple. Psalm 27:4
God was David's one true desire. His life was a testament to this. Yes, he made mistakes, big ones. But David's heart was devoted to God in a profound way.
Surely because of David's greatest desire being God, it made his heart change. In fact, scripture even tell us this.
"After removing Saul, he made David their king. God testified concerning him: 'I have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.' Acts 13:22
When God becomes our greatest desire, our own desires change.
His desires become our desires.
As we drove down to the beach a couple of days ago, I had a ball of yarn in my lap, a gold crochet hook in my right hand, and my trusty little "how-to-crochet-the-easy-way" book squeezed next to the yarn in my lap.
I spent the entire car ride, all 5 1/2 hours, trying to learn a new craft. The thing about crocheting, is that you have to start a foundation row first. Everything is built upon and around your foundation row.
Each time I started building on my foundation row trying a different kind of stitch, I would end up ripping it right back out. Back down to the foundation row.
Sometimes I would think I really had something going, and then bam, I had messed up somewhere and gotten off track with my rows. This would leave big holes in the pattern I was trying to make.
The Lord kept reminding me as I stitched, that our faith walk is like this foundation row.
He is the Foundation.
We can make beautiful, intricate things when we are stitched into Him, our Foundation.
However, we can also get way off track, and end up dangerously far from our Foundation. {kind of like my crocheting looks sometimes!}
When we look at the whole counsel of God's Word and see what Jesus commanded us to do, we have instructions for staying stitched into God's foundation.
"Jesus replied: “'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Matthew 22:36-40
Breaking it down, Jesus teaches us that the greatest commandment He has given us is this:
To Love God, and to Love others.
The end.
Wow!
How simple is this?
Yet, how hard is this.
We get away from our foundation when these two things are not being lived out.
When these two things are not stitched firmly into the foundation of our lives, oh girls, everything will start falling apart. Just like my crochet project.
We can even be doing some seemingly "good" things and be far from our Foundation if those "good" things are not stitched in love.
Girls, we don't have to be hyper-spiritual and full of biblical knowledge to get this.
We need to Love God first.
We need to Love others second.
Who needs love today, friends?
My children could care less how much biblical knowledge I have. All they really want is for me to love them. That's it. That's the greatest way I can show them Christ.
Let's don't fool ourselves into thinking that others are swayed by our love and devotion to Jesus. They are only swayed by our love for Jesus when it's poured out onto them.
The world doesn't care about how much quiet time we have, how many bible studies we attend or teach, or how many scriptures we have memorized.
The world craves the Love of God. Oh, and how the world needs the Love of God.
Love is what will draw their hearts to His.
So, bottom line....
Do you want God to give you the desires of your heart? Do you want your plans to succeed?
Stay on the firm foundation of Christ by....
Loving God.
Loving those around you.
Your plans will succeed, because those are His plans for you.
How do we start?
Make it a daily prayer that God will help you to Love Him first, and Love others second. Before anything else, ask Him to make this your life mission. Ask Him to keep you stitched tightly into the firm foundation of His Love in every single thing you do.
Girls, He will fulfill this desire of you heart. In ways that you cannot even imagine.
staying stitched to Him,
jill
