“The earth is the LORD'S, and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. For he hath founded it upon the seas and established it upon the floods.  Who shall ascend into the hill of the LORD? Or who shall stand in his holy place?  He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart, who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.  He shall receive the blessing from the LORD, and righteousness from the God of his salvation. This is the generation of them that seek him that seek thy face, O Jacob.  (Psalm 24: 1-6)

Have you heard any of the following statements regarding church goers?  “He is such a good person, what a heart for God!  She is such a wonderful person; she has such a servant’s heart.  She is always at the church doing something!”

These can be judgmental statements, because for the most part, we will not know the true heart intent of someone.  People can fake the manifestation of the “fruit” of the spirit in their life.  It can be done, and people can be fooled for the most part.  How many of us have done it?   We are not going to know the true intent of a person’s heart unless God were to tell us!  Now, if someone hears God’s voice, and if they “know God, and if they have a special kind of authority with God; He may tell them things like that for a purpose, then they will know if someone has a servant’s heart, or a heart for God.  But!  For the most part we are not going to have that kind of information, and to assume is stupid!

People make these judgments by what they see on the outside.  Let us take the statement about the woman.  This woman could be up at the church working just to get away from her husband, or her children.  She may be using working at the church as an escape!  God may not want her up at the church working all the time.  But man looks at that action as someone having a servant’s heart.  Therefore, man assumes that is what is going on!

So, here is the point.  These types of statements are said loosely in the church, and it is like a “loose cannon”.  You never know when somebody is going to make a statement like that about someone else, and it is very bad, because it makes the person who hears it feel like, “OH, I’m supposed to be like them.”  That is NOT true!  To up and say someone has a heart for God, or that someone has a servant’s heart is to be passing a judgement that may not be true.

Let us say a church member by what they do at the church displays the attributes of what the church thinks signifies a pure heart for God, and a servant’s heart. However, underneath this person is faking it!  Therefore, they are doing their own thing in every aspect of their life, and the reason they are doing all of this is to make themselves look good.  Now!  Let us say someone sees all this and thinks they are such a wonderful servant for God, because they are living up to all the standards laid down by Christendom.  If that person goes up to them and tells them how wonderful they are, they are condoning their actions, and they are going to give this person all the ammunition they need to keep living a lie!  Understand?

During a conversation with a she told me about something she learned from God regarding herself.  As she shared, I realized I had experienced just that in my journey to walking in obedience.  This is what she said, “In the past, I made a lot of mistakes at times in thinking I had a heart for God when I didn’t.  When I eventually came to the point where I really had a servant’s heart, and I really had God’s power working in my life daily, it was hardly ever recognized.  And that is because of “to who much is given, much is required’.”  She went on to explain, “When you are to the point you have a “solid” servant’s heart for God, you are going to be asked to take a stand against people for God.  Now, when this happens to them that doesn’t necessarily look like what they want God to be!”

When you come to the point that you have to take a stand for God, and you are holding your ground on what God is telling you to do in every area of your life, and you are telling someone, “No more of this, that or the other, are they going to be saying to you, “Oh, you have a such a heart for God?”  I do not think so!  They would be the last person who would say anything like that about you, or to you!

Many people have a very warped idea of who God really is!  Let us look at this for a minute:  Let us look at the verse I just mentioned.

“...From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked. I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!  But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is completed! Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law."  Luke 12:48b-53 (NIV)

When someone in a family comes to God and tells Him, “I’m going to follow you God, no matter what it takes.”  Look out!  Things are going to start happening.  God is going to begin asking them to do things that could start an upheaval in their home, and with their friends.  Why?  Because, as God starts to change and rearrange a person it is going to affect how things are done in the home, as well as with the person’s relationships!  You see God can ask us to do and say things that can appear or seem totally out of character for someone who has a pure heart intention for God!

Let me show you what I mean.  What about Abraham?  God told him to take his son and sacrifice him (Genesis 22:1-19)!  He also told Abraham to send his other son away along with his mother, never to see him again!  What did the people think?  Did they say, “Oh wow, he has such a heart for God?  We in Christendom say that now, because we have the whole story, but if we had been there at the time, would we have been saying that back then?

God told Jeremiah to say to the people, “I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins, a haunt of jackals; and I will lay waste the towns of Judah so no one can live there.  What man is wise enough to understand this? Who has been instructed by the LORD and can explain it? Why has the land been ruined and laid waste like a desert that no one can cross?  The LORD said, "It is because they have forsaken my law, which I set before them; they have not obeyed me or followed my law. Instead, they have followed the stubbornness of their hearts; they have followed the Baals, as their fathers taught them”.  Therefore, this is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: "See, I will make this people eat bitter food and drink poisoned water.  I will scatter them among nations that neither they nor their fathers have known, and I will pursue them with the sword until I have destroyed them." Jeremiah 9:11-16 (NIV)

God said all these things because of their disobedience!  When Jeremiah was delivering this message for God, was anyone saying to him, “Oh, you have such a pure heart for God, what a good servant you are?”

When Joseph’s brothers showed up in Egypt looking for food, why didn’t God have Joseph jumped down from his throne and tell them, “Everything is okay, I forgive you and I love you?”  Why did God have him put his brothers through such a test?  Once again, we can answer that now and say all the right things.  But!  If that is what God has someone do to us, we would scream and yell and say something like, “God would never have you do this to me that is not what my God would do.”

After all Moses had done for God, and all the sacrifices he had made, and all the miracles God performed through Him, why would God say to Moses, “Because you struck the rock instead of speaking to the rock, you will not see the promised land!”  Once again, we know because we have all the information, but if someone were told that today, what would be said? “Oh, my God would never do that, my sins are forgiven past, present and future!”

So, what is this teaching about?  Christendom’s standards for someone having “pure” heart intentions are way off.  Once again back to the famous “two-minute sinners’ prayer”.  You do not acquire a pure heart for God, just by saying a sinner’s prayer!  No one can have a pure heart without being tested!   You do not “know God” unless you have been put through the fire having to rely on Him!  You do not have a servant’s heart unless you have a pure heart!   The two go together!  You may have good heart intentions; you may have good heart intentions towards having a servant’s heart.  But!  Until you have been transformed, tested, and refined, you do not “know God, and you do not know how He thinks, or how He would always handle things!  We must be ‘transformed’! We must be “transformed by the renewing of our mind’!

“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is -- his good, pleasing, and perfect will.  (Romans 12:2b (NIV)

Look at the last part of that verse, “THEN you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is -- his good, pleasing, and perfect will!”  It is not instant breakfast by saying a two-minute sinner’s prayer!  You must be tested.  People’s hearts are deceitful!

“The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?   “I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve." (NIV) Jeremiah 17:9-10

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?  I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings. (KJV) Jeremiah 17:9-10

“The heart is more deceitful than anything else, and mortally sick.  Who can fathom it?  I, Adonai, search the heart; I test inner motivations; in order to give to everyone what his actions and conduct deserve.”  (CJB) Jeremiah 17:9-10

The word ‘search’ is Strong’s # 2713, which means to search, examine, investigate, explore to ascertain.  The word, ‘try’, is Strong’s #0974 which means to examine, prove, scrutinize, to test!  To make a trial!

Two Prayer Examples

Number 1 - “Good morning God, I praise you, I worship you this morning, please help so and so.  Please make me a better person today at work.  God, please help the poor people in Iraq.  Bless them God and bring peace to that land.  Father, please give me whatever words today that I need to speak to the people at work that are not saved. Give me the right words God that I may speak exactly what is going to make a difference in their life, so that they will want to come to church with me.”

Number 2 - “Okay, I’m ready to start the day God.  How are you this morning God?  Anything you want to tell me Father before we start the day?  Father I pray you would be glorified today whether you choose to use me or not.  I am ready and willing to do whatever you are going to ask of me today, whether I like it or not.  Whatever you are willing to tell me this morning, I am willing to hear.  If you want to teach me, I’m willing to sit, if you want to tell me something, I’m willing to listen, if you want to correct me, I’m willing to change.

The first prayer example is asking God to do everything and has no interest or intention to do something for God!  If you are a slave you do not come to your master and say, “Oh, please do this for me today, oh, please could you please do that.”  This is someone who would want to be boss!

This last prayer is a servant’s prayer.  A servant is someone who gives God the total freedom to have His will, His way, and His good pleasure in their life. 

If God asked you the question. “What do you want me to do with your life?”  If you were to give Him any other answer than something like, “God, I want you to do with my life what you want to!  Because I want to be what you want me to be, and I want you to be able to fulfill your calling in my life.”  If you said anything other than something like that, you were thinking about what you wanted instead of what God wanted.  You were making it about you, instead of your life being about God.  The answer to this question would be: “Do whatever you want to do God!”  Period.  End of discussion!

We should want God to be able to fix us the way, we were meant to be.  But, more times than not, it is all about man’s will for his life, and man’s desires for his life.  In essence men and women make their life about them.

Someone who has good heart intentions has a heart with a good earthly nature.  A heart with good heart intentions, is a heart with good thoughts towards God.  A heart with good intentions has not been tested, has not been purified, and has not given up the things God wants out of their life, and they do not even know what they are.

A pure heart for God is: A heart that has been solidified, tested, and purified.  It is a heart that has given up things according to God’s will and good pleasure!  It is a heart that is willing to continue to do just that.  It is a heart that is in total submission to God.  It is a heart that praise’s God while walking daily.  A pure heart for God has an attitude of a son or daughter of God.  A pure heart for God has the appropriate attitude of a servant of God.  A pure heart for God worships God in everything they do, without having to say a word!

A person that is on the narrow path is a person that has been tested.  The narrow path is where the process of being tested, tried, and transformed takes place.  Why?  Because it is like a desert experience!  If someone obeys God faithfully, they have gone through a desert experience.  In a desert experience your heart is tested, and purified.

Someone who truly has a desire to come after God and follow Him, must have a willingness to want to understand God for who He is, and not for who they want Him to be.  You must want Him for who He really is!  You must have the ability to hear God, and the ability to learn and change.  You must have the desire to act accordingly to His direction.  In simple terms, you must talk to God, listen, and obey!

No matter what anyone says is stopping them from going after God according to His good pleasure, no matter what the reason, it all boils down to choose!  There are no reasons and excuses, it is all a matter of choice.  A choice is a choice!  If something is holding you back, it does not matter, because you are choosing to allow it to hold you back, and a choice is a choice!

“Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. (NIV) Psalm 139:23

“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (NIV) Luke 12:34

“For with the heart one goes on trusting and thus continues toward righteousness, while with the mouth one keeps on making public acknowledgment and thus continues toward deliverance.”  (CJB) Romans 10:10

“We are not trying to commend ourselves to you again but are giving you an opportunity to take pride in us, so that you can answer those who take pride in what is seen rather than in what is in the heart. (NIV) 2 Corinthians 5:12

“Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.  Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him.  And this is his command: to believe (trust) in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.  Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us. (NIV) 1 John 3:18-24

“For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints, and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. (NIV) Hebrews 4:12