17.2 A True Heart
© 2015 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
And now we come to the Heart of all things, the Heart of God’s HOW and WHY and WHEREFORE and WHO. A true heart in full assurance of faith (Hebrews 10:22). – I have found Me a man after My own heart (1 Samuel 13:14 & Acts 13:22).
One thing alone will persevere through all the darkness of the veil into living only as the Mercy Seat of God now in all the universe. That one thing is Heart. The Heart of Jesus, the Heart of David. The Heart of a Pirate, the Heart of Compassion.
A True Heart Defined
Alēthinós Kardia – A True Heart!
- Alēthinós: true (literally made of truth), real, genuine. (As an adjective, derived from … "true to fact") – properly, true (real), emphasizing the organic connection (the authentic unity) between what is true and its source or origin. Alēthinós then emphasizes the integrity of what is true, down to its inner make-up (reality, "true inside and out").
- Kardia – heart: "the affective center of our being" and the capacity of moral preference (volitional desire, choice); "desire-producer that makes us tick," i.e. our "desire-decisions" that establish who we really are. (Adapted from biblehub.com)
What is a true heart? May I suggest that a human heart CANNOT be true, cannot be real or genuine unless it is doing exactly what it is made to do, that is, revealing “the organic connection (the authentic unity) between what is true and its source or origin.”
The origin of a true heart is the Heart of the Father. The organic connection found between our true hearts and the Father’s Heart is the Lord Jesus Christ. The human heart was designed to contain and to carry the very Heart of the Almighty. The human heart was made to be filled with omnipotence. No human heart empty of God can be true.
A Pirate
Why a pirate? There is no concept in our present language that better defines for us the quality of heart possessed by David than a pirate. A pirate is someone filled with daring bravado and undeterred boldness of heart. A pirate disregards all law and custom as irrelevant. A pirate sees what is most valuable and single-mindedly pursues it until the treasure belongs utterly to him.
I am defining faith; I am describing David. David saw that the most valuable thing in Israel was the Ark of the Covenant with the Mercy Seat upon it. The pirate in David WANTED that Ark, the HOLY presence of God, for himself. He wanted to keep it in his back yard.
David’s Piracy
David disregards the laws and customs set down by Moses and honored by the priests of Israel for 400 years. He simply goes down and steals the Ark for himself. In the process, one of his soldiers is killed by the Ark. This scares David, but makes him angry with God as well. He leaves the Ark with someone else and returns home.
Three months later, David is back. Someone had told him that God might prefer it if only priests carried the Ark. David is so consumed with determination to steal the Ark for himself that he is more than willing to risk God’s displeasure again. A few hours later, David is dancing naked before all Israel as he brings the Ark into the city and puts it in his back yard.
I Will Have What I Want!
No prophet told David he could do this. God did not speak to David to put the Ark into his back yard. Why did David do it? Because to David, living together with God and God with him was simply the only thing he wanted. David could not live without God right there at hand.
One thing I have desired of the Lord, that will I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple (Psalm 27:4). David didn’t care. The Ark was his, and he would have it.
Running into the Presence of the Almighty
And so David pitches a big ugly tent in his back yard and puts the Ark there in it. That tent is now the “Holy of Holies,” but David pays no attention to the religiosity that would have kept everyone else far away, or made them approach God obsequiously (that is, for outward show). David runs out into the Presence of the Almighty any time he feels like it, bringing hundreds of friends, including Philistines into the Holy of Holies, dancing and singing before God. Even when he sins and is found out, he dares to run right out into the Holiest place in the universe with that sin, and attempts to finagle God into letting him keep his son.
A Heart Just Like Mine
And God says: Hey, everyone! Look at this. Here is a man with a heart just like Mine.
What makes the difference? Later, Uzziah, a good king and David’s descendant, attempts to go into the same Holy of Holies, but God rejects Uzziah because his heart desires outward show. How many do what they do for the face of others?
Faith is the determination to seize for itself what it wants, a determination that will not be turned aside, a determination that will not regard what anyone else thinks. What do you want?
NOT Power Over
David did NOT want power over. He proved that time and again, losing everything more than once by refusing to put out his hand to take power for himself. Power is for one purpose – to command the face of others, to turn the face of others to regard one’s self, to persuade the fear of others to serve and obey one’s self. David wanted God for His/his heart; he was after God’s heart. And this is the other part of a true heart, not half and half, but all and all. A true heart is all Pirate; a true heart is all Compassion. A true heart is Jesus.
Compassion
You see, the Presence of the Almighty is the Mercy Seat. The One who bears our griefs and carries our sorrows. – Love suffers long and is kind . . . Love bears for all, believes for all, hopes for all, endures for all. Love never fails. (1 Corinthians 13:4-8).
To share heart with God is to be that same Mercy Seat. The most important session in this course and in your life is not far ahead, now. That most important session is Session 23: Shaping the Human Heart to Fit God. In that session you will seize hold of the Mercy Seat of God, not for you, but as your own heart, and thus entirely for others.
In Full Assurance of Faith
Let me define faith again. Faith is the determination to seize the most valuable thing in the universe, the Father’s Heart, for myself, to possess it as my own, a determination that will not be deterred until God’s Heart is fully mine.
The ENTIRE question of the universe is not “what is,” but What Do YOU WANT????
Faith is utter and absolute piracy. But this line is much stronger than faith. This TRUE HEART is filled with FULL ASSURANCE of faith. Absolute certainty.
Seize the Heart of God
But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him (Hebrews 11:6). The two worst mistakes we could make would be to tiptoe into the presence of God on the one hand or to rush in “where angels fear to tread” for showmanship before the face of Eve.
The only ones who please God are those who rush into the Holiest Place in the universe, those who rush right past the mighty Cherubs in all their fear, those who grab whatever they can get their hands on for themselves before the Almighty. But those who really please God are those who seize His Heart and will not be denied until it is their sole possession.