What is the heart? It is a small muscle that pumps the blood through the body, without it there would be no life in the body. The heart is kind of like the battery in a car, without it the car cannot function.
When the Bible speaks of the heart I think it is relating to the mind, where our thought process takes place, the control center of our emotions and actions. From my understanding the soul and the spirit are the same, when God breathed into Adam he became a living soul. This is hard for me to understand let alone try to explain. To me the heart seems to be the very core of the person, the very essence of his life, not just that little pump in the middle of a person’s chest.
Maybe when God said that King David was a man after His own heart in 1 Samuel 13:14, God was talking about His soul, mind and spirit, His whole being. I think this is the kind of people God wants all believers to be. Think of what the Psalmist said in Psalms 42:1, “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.” David didn’t write this Psalm, the sons of Korah did, they were temple musicians and assistants but I think this could be David’s testimony also.
Have you ever been real thirsty and you would have done most anything to get a drink? This is the way I think David felt about God and the Temple. The Bible says this in Matthew 5:6, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” I think this was also the kind of person David was, a man who sought to please the Lord. In Psalms 42:2 it says, “My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?” This was the desire of the sons of Korah. These men sound like they had such a hunger to be in the temple of God and to stand in His holy presence; it seems like a thirst that could only be quenched by the presence of the living God. I think King David felt the same way, he wasn’t perfect and he did give way to sin at times but even in his bad behavior and sin he demonstrated at times he was still a man after the heart of God.
When I think about some of these things I think about how judgmental we can be at times. Think about this; if we didn’t have David’s life story recorded and all we knew about him were his failures and sins we would probably judge him as a very unrighteous man, definitely not as a man after God’s own heart. I see this as a big problem in our churches today, it is easy to judge people by what we see, then say, “what kind of Christian is that, I would never do such a thing,” and walk away feeling all high and mighty when the person might have a struggle in that area and has not received the deliverance over it yet. I don’t know about you but I have done this judging thing on many occasions, to my shame.
When I lived in Texas I shared a place with a man that was studying to be a pastor. This man still drank and had a bad temper. One night we had a falling out and he went and got a rifle and pointed it at me and was going to kill me then changed his mind and stabbed me in the hand with a knife. This man was studying to be a pastor but he still needed to be delivered from these things, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t love the Lord. He may have gone on to be a great preacher; I really don’t know I never heard from him again.
We need to be very careful in this area, that we leave the judging up to the Lord. It is easy to judge the outward appearance of a man but to really know his heart is another story. So be careful and do not judge, God is the only one that truly knows each person’s heart. I hope this has been a help in this area, God bless and have a great day!!
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