Fully Devoted

A flawed heart does not mean you cannot be wholehearted toward God. How is that? When you are aware of your flaws and are sincerely repentant when those flaws take action to become sin, when your ultimate motive is to please and honor God, when you characteristically seek God for direction in your life, when you desire to give God the glory for your successes, there you have the makings of a heart after God.

Going Deep // Focus: 1 Chronicles 14:8-12

When the Philistines heard that David had been anointed king over all Israel, they mobilized all their forces to capture him. But David was told they were coming, so he marched out to meet them. The Philistines arrived and made a raid in the valley of Rephaim. So David asked God, “Should I go out to fight the Philistines? Will you hand them over to me?” The Lord replied, “Yes, go ahead. I will hand them over to you.” So David and his troops went up to Baal-perazim and defeated the Philistines there. “God did it!” David exclaimed. “He used me to burst through my enemies like a raging flood!” So they named that place Baal-perazim (which means “the Lord who bursts through”). The Philistines had abandoned their gods there, so David gave orders to burn them.

God himself wrote King David’s epitaph, saying of 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) Is that the same David we read about in 1 and 2 Samuel, as well as here in 1 Chronicles?

Just in the last chapter, David got angry with God and sulked over the death of Uzzah for mishandling the Ark of the Covenant. (1 Chronicles 13:11) In the aftermath of that event, David got mad at his wife, Michal, and refused to engage in normal marital relations with her—for the rest of her life. (2 Samuel 6:16-23) And those are just two of the more “minor” questionable episodes in David’s life. In his earlier days, he had wanted to murder a man for refusing to feed his fighting men but took his wife instead after this foolish man had dropped dead. (1 Samuel 25) There was the whole affair episode with Bathsheba and the cover-up to the affair when he had the woman’s husband murdered, then took her as his wife. (2 Samuel 11) And there was the time he angered the Lord by arrogantly counting his fighting men. (2 Samuel 24)

To put it mildly, David was a less than perfect man. So why did God forever designate him as a man after God’s own heart? Well, to be certain, only God knows his own reasons, but he knew what was in David’s heart. David was not perfect—no one is—but he seemed to have a heart that was tender toward God, and while he blew it bigly throughout his life, he also repented bigly after these unfortunate episodes. Even though he was a flawed man, he was wholehearted toward the Lord.

In case you missed that, and this might seem a bit controversial, a flawed heart does not mean one cannot be wholehearted toward God. How is that? When one is aware of their flaws and is sincerely repentant when those flaws take action to become sin, when one’s ultimate motive is to please and honor God, when one characteristically seeks God for direction in their life, when one desires to give God the glory for their successes, there you have the makings of a heart after God.

In the story of 1 Chronicles 14, notice how David, unlike King Saul, sought the Lord before he went to war. Then when David and his troops defeated the Philistines, he gave God full credit for his victory. Unlike Saul, he took none of the glory for himself. He didn’t set up a statue to himself to commemorate his greatness, unlike Saul. (1 Samuel 15:12) Unlike Saul, David didn’t secure the spoils of war for his own pleasure (1 Samuel 15:8), but instead, he burned all the idolatrous implements of the heathen Philistines. David’s victory over his enemy gives us a glimpse into a flawed heart that also happened to be a heart fully devoted to God.

But I am saying by this that the ends justify the means? Not at all! Human sin brings horrible consequences, and David’s life is Exhibit A—a cautionary tale that we should never cheapen God’s grace by presuming he will forgive our sin in advance of committing them. We are obligated to bring those flaws before God for cleansing, deliverance and victory over them. But at the end of the day, if the preponderance of our heart’s desires have been “after God,” the Lord himself will write our epitaph as a person “after my own heart.”

Do you want to be great in God’s eyes? You are probably thinking, “Who, me? Not likely; not going to happen.” Relax, you qualify, because you don’t have to be perfect, you only need to offer a heart that is fully devoted to God. And he will even help you with that if you ask him.