I kind of zipped through a couple of things yesterday on PULSE at Bay West Church, so I thought I'd slow it down and emphasize something about the whole heart thing.
A key verse that we talked about yesterday is found in 1 Chronicles 28:9 where David is giving Solomon some of the last instructions that Solomon will get from his father before David's death...important words, in other words. There's a lot in this verse, but I want to hit one particular thing.
9 "And you, my son Solomon, acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the LORD searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will reject you forever.
There's a key point in here. Obviously, David tells Solomon that he needs to serve God with a wholehearted devotion...as we talked about yesterday, that's living your life with only one motive in your chest...honoring God. We can all be divided in our heart by trying to live with many motives that drive what we do...our career path, our kids, our health, our entertainment, our goals...but a "wholehearted devotion" to God puts all these things to the side and lives every decision answering one question "What will honor God the most here?"
What trips most of us up in this pursuit is when our brain gets in the way. I play music, sometimes by ear, and I was telling a friend that the biggest problem to doing that is when I let my "brain get in the way". I'm playing along and my fingers are just going to what's the next deal...almost like there's a connection from the ear to my fingers and there you are. Then all of a sudden, for some reason, I think "hey this is too easy" and there's a hiccup in the process when I try to "think" about the next chord I'm going to play...and that's usually when I make the mistake and blow it. I don't trust the process, because I don't understand it fully.
For us it's the same way in life. When God's Word tells us to do something or outlines this plan for a situation in life, when we balk is when our "brain gets in the way". We don't trust the process, because we don't understand it fully...we can't see how THAT would work. This verse in 1 Chronicles gives us some wisdom on that subject. David tells Solomon to serve God with a "wholehearted devotion" (only one motive...for God) and with a "willing mind". In other words, have a mind that is open to what God tells you...it's not an "understanding mind" or a "comprehending mind" or a "mind that sees the whole plan and can connect all the dots to why it will work, allowing you to trust in that"...nope...just being open to doing what God tells you to do. You just have to trust "God". Don't let your brain get in the way.
We've had to do that as we've tried to be a church in Palm Bay. A lot of people, even in FBC Melbourne, haven't fully grasped what we are trying to do here..."aren't you starting a church?" "satellite campus?". I get people all the time, when I'm back at the Melbourne Campus for dinner that say, "Hey, so sorry you left us to start a new church" and I say "I never left, just think about it as if I go to a different service than you...we are all FBC." Many things that we've done to this point are things that if we let our brains get in the way of what God was telling us to do, we'd have missed the great opportunity to see the end of God's plan, because we wanted the explanation of how it was coming first.
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