Blessed are those who are blameless in their way, who keep the law of the Lord!
Blessed are those who keep His testimonies, who seek Him with all their heart!
(Psalm 119:1,2)
If we are to become complete persons, we must seek God with our whole heart. To do this requires a more balanced effort than most people have yet given in their pursuit of God.
Intelligence. Intelligence, or mind, is our ability to acquire knowledge, think, and reason. In giving us this amazing ability, God intended that we use it to understand the truth about Him and His creation, including us and our relationship with Him. With wisdom, we are able to be aware of God and understand at least something about His nature and His will.
Emotions. We can not only know, but also have feelings about what we know. And how poor we would be without our feelings and affections! Knowing about God without any desire for Him would be a dry and dusty business indeed.
Desire. Our intellect and our emotions are not given for their own sake, but to support our actions. It has to do with our willpower’s ability to make decisions. respond To God. And if we do not obey God and give Him our will, then our knowledge and our feelings are useless. These things are to lead us towards divine work.
At the end of his life, Moses encouraged the people of Israel to remain loyal to God after entering the Promised Land. If they did not do so, the land would be taken away from them, and they would be scattered among the nations. However, because of the suffering they endured in exile, they could return to God. And if they did With all my heart, They will find God again: “But from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find him if you search with all your heart and with all your soul” (Deuteronomy 4:29).
To seek God with “whole heart” means, primarily, to seek Him with all sincerity. But God has given us hearts with more than one dimension, and we are designed to find Him in all of them. Isn’t this what whole-heartedness also means? To give God less than these three – our intellect, our emotions, and our will – is to be less than a complete person.
“Man is created to know good with his mind, to desire it with his affection once he has known it, and to be attached to it with his will once he has felt its charms” (JI Packer).
Gary Henry – WordPoints.com AreYouaChristian.com
