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UNDERSTANDING GOD’S HEART

Date: 
Sunday, January 9, 2022
Bible Meditation: 
Luke 24: 13-32

Did not our HEART BURN within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?” – Luke 24:32 

UNDERSTANDING GOD’S HEART is the key to understanding our own hearts: Did not our HEART BURN within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?” (Lk.24:32). It is His Heart that designed redemption through Jesus. From His Heart sprang the beauty of the world, the wonder of the universe, the creativity of all humankind, and the unique love that God has for each of us. His Heart is the blueprint of all human hearts. After Jesus rose from the dead, He met two men on the road to Emmaus who were perplexed by all the recent happenings at Jerusalem. Jesus rebuked them for their lack of understanding of the scriptures: “And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself” (v.27). He rebuked them for being “slow of heart to believe” (v.25). But He didn’t leave them without underatnding!

Two ideas are central to understanding God’s Heart, which many Christians do not seem to appreciate. These two keys are based on God’s omniscience, His all-knowingness. While it is amazing to think that God knows everything, it appears that many Believers have not grasped what this means when it comes to the Heart of God.

The first key is this: There is rarely any person we would not love if we only knew their story. It is easy to judge and condemn others when all we see is their outward actions or behavior. We tend to resent people who treat us with malice or anger. We even get frustrated at loved ones when they do not do what we think they should in the way we want them to. But God, who knows everything about everyone, loves each person unconditionally. When people are rude to us, we get angry in return. But if, like God, we saw the quarrel they had with their spouse that morning, or the way they had been treated by their boss, or how they had just been offended, we would be able to love them in spite of their rudeness, because we would know their story.

We usually do this with ourselves. If we’re rude to someone, we might feel bad about it afterwards, and might even apologize. But we tend to rationalise our actions because we know everything that is going on in our lives which caused us to react rudely as we did. Since we know our own story, we’re often able to still love ourselves despite the things we do. Since God knows everything about us, He is able to understand what led up to our bad behavior, and loves us despite our negative attitude or bad behaviour.

The second key is related: To know all is to forgive all. God is willing to forgive us for everything, in part, because He knows all the circumstances which led up to our sinfulness. This does not imply that we can blame others for what we do, or that God lets us off the hook for committing sin. It does mean that God forgives us for what we do, partly because He knows our antecedents.

These truths should help us develop virtues of forgiveness and tolerance. We do not know everything about everyone. So, our job is to unconditionally love and freely forgive others. If we leave omniscience up to God, we can love all and forgive all, just as God loves and forgives us. God will take us through any experience that would reinforce the deep desires in our hearts to understand His Heart. Even moments of physical weakness or emotional turmoil can serve to drive us to seek His loving Heart. We generally don’t like not being in control or being unsure of the future. However, rather than feeling sorry for ourselves, we should learn to invite God to work in and through us, reminding ourselves to take one day at a time, be grateful in the moment, and trust in the Father’s Heart!

Adetokunbo O. Ilesanmi (Meditations)

Prayer: 
Lord, in UNDERSTANDING YOUR HEART help us to understand ours and to develop virtues of tolerance and forgiveness, in Jesus name.
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