Winning the Heart of God

WINNING

THE HEART

OF GOD

WINNING

THE HEART

OF GOD

ROBB THOMPSON

Copyright © 2002 by Robb Thompson

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee by Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James Version.

Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from New American Standard Bible. Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977 by the Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. <www.Lockman.org>

Scripture quotations marked AMPLIFIED are taken from The Amplified Bible. Old Testament. Copyright ©1965, 1987 by Zondervan Corporation, Grand Rapids, Michigan. And from THE AMPLIFIED NEW TESTAMENT. Copyright © 1958, 1987 by the Lockman Foundation, La Habra, California. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible: New International Version ®. NIV ®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked TLB are taken from The Living Bible, copyright © 1971. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked The Message are from The Message: The New Testament in Contemporary English. Copyright © 1993 by Eugene H. Peterson. Editorial Consultant: Cynthia Hansen

Cover Design: Greg Lane (also Bruce Gore)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

ISBN 0-7852-6487-6

Printed in the United States of America

02 03 04 05 06 PHX 5 4 3 2 1

CONTENTS

Introduction

Part 1: A Submitted Heart

David: A Man After God’s Own Heart

The Subtle Trap of Rebellion

God’s Way of Relating to Authority

Choose Obedience

God’s Only Path to Fulfillment

Part 2: A Loyal Heart

The Foundation of Faithfulness

The Steadfast Loyalty of Our God

Loyalty: Our Link to Divinity

Loyalty Is a Choice

About the Author

INTRODUCTION

A vital element is missing from many Christians’ lives— an element that is attained only by individual choice. It is the element of God’s heart—of seeing everything pertaining to life on this earth the way God sees it.

It isn’t that God doesn’t want to impart His heart to His people; He emphatically does! But too often people are all caught up with their own selfish perspective. They are constantly thinking in terms of how things affect them: What can I get out of this situation? How can I maneuver my relationships so the people in my life become everything I want them to be?

Second Chronicles 16:9 (KJV) tells us that God actively searches for people with perfect hearts: For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him.

What does it mean to have a perfect heart toward God? The New International Version translates that phrase this way: . . . whose hearts are fully committed to him. The New King James Version says that God shows Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him. These are the people who win the heart of our faithful, covenant-keeping God because they have learned to respond to every situation from His perspective.

Over the years, my primary focus has been to help people develop a perfect heart toward God so they can become winners in every area of life. One thing I have not focused on is protecting my own interests. You see, I am convinced God will take care of me. I know He loves me. I know He is for me. Even if I were dropped off the Sears Tower, I might be as thin as a nickel when it was over, but somehow God would get me back on my feet!

These are not big faith statements for me. I don’t sit up at night wringing my hands and wondering what is to become of me. I know I will be fine. I never spend time trying to understand why someone has wronged me. No matter what scandal erupts in front of me, I will not be changed because I have made a choice. My life isn’t based on what any man thinks; it is based on what God thinks.

In this book, I want to answer the question, What does it take to win the heart of God? In order to do that, I’ll show you the primary ingredients that must be present in your life to become a person after God’s own heart. You will find out that neither society nor a dictionary can define who you are and what your words mean. Only your heart gives definition to everything else in your life.

The most revealing attribute of spiritual immaturity is subjectivity—seeing things only from your perspective. So as you read this book, ask yourself this: Do I see situations only according to what is important to me and what I can get out of them? Or is God able to look at me and say, This child of Mine is a person after My own heart?

My prayer is that this book will help set you free so you can obtain the missing element for yourself. Allow the Holy Spirit to make the necessary adjustments in your life. Don’t stop until your heart is perfect toward God. Only then will you be able to win His heart and enter into His perfect will for your life.

Part 1:

A SUBMITTED

HEART

• Chapter 1 •

DAVID: A MAN AFTER

GOD’S OWN HEART

The prophet Samuel—a man on a divine mission—walked with purpose toward the small town of Bethlehem. Sadness filled his heart as he thought of Saul, the current king of Israel, who had just proven himself unworthy of the crown he wore. Now God had rejected Saul as king and sent Samuel to Bethlehem to the house of a man named Jesse. All Samuel knew was that once he arrived there, he would anoint one of Jesse’s sons to be Israel’s next king.

At Samuel’s request, Jesse brought out his sons to pass before the prophet. All seven young men were tall, handsome, and impressive looking, yet Samuel chose none of them. As Jesse stood nearby, wondering what was happening, Samuel asked him, Do you have any other sons?

Well, yes, there is one more son, Jesse admitted. He is out in the fields tending sheep. To Jesse, his youngest son, David, seemed insignificant in comparison to his seven older sons. But Jesse was seeing the situation from man’s perspective.

Young David finally arrived from the fields, having no idea what was going on. The Lord told the prophet Samuel, This is the one! Immediately Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed David in front of his brothers.

Why did Samuel pass over the seven older brothers? Because of what God told the prophet as he gazed with approval at Eliab, Jesse’s strapping firstborn son: Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the LORD does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart (1 Sam. 16:7).

This, then, is the key. God doesn’t look at the outside of man; He looks at the heart.

People wonder all the time why they seem stuck in life, never getting beyond mediocrity and chronic defeat. But these people don’t have a problem with the external circumstances of their lives. They don’t even have a problem with sin. The problem lies in their hearts.

A MAN AFTER MY OWN HEART

From the moment Samuel anointed David, the young man began a lifelong love affair with God, and God began to move mightily in David’s life.

Second Corinthians 8:1 uses a phrase that applies here: Moreover, brethren, we make known to you the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia. The grace of God bestowed is exactly what happened on the day Samuel anointed David. God’s grace was bestowed on David to become like Him. From that moment on, David’s life would be defined by his constant pursuit of the Lord and his deep yearning to please God in everything that he was.

A study of David’s life reveals that he chose to make the pursuit of God his life’s ambition. Later God would call David a man after My own heart (Acts 13:22).

In the entire Bible, God referred to only two men with such affection. First, Matthew 3:13–17 relates the time Jesus came to John the Baptist on the shores of the Jordan River. John recognized Jesus as the Son of God and exclaimed, I need to be baptized by You, and You are coming to me? But Jesus told John, Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.

So John obeyed, baptizing Jesus in the river. As Jesus rose out of the water, the Spirit of God descended from heaven like a dove and rested upon Him. Then God spoke out of heaven: This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

The only other man spoken about with such affection in all the Bible was David. According to God’s assessment, David was a man after His own heart.

But what does it mean to be a person after God’s heart? Well, the meaning of the word after in the original Greek is interesting. We might think it means to come behind something that has gone before. But actually the word after means to resemble; to follow; to be in pursuit of; to be right up next to; to aspire; and to desire to be like.

David was a man after God’s heart because he aspired to be like God. David wanted everything about his life to reflect God. David wanted to look like Him, think like Him, talk like Him, and act like Him. He wanted to be everything God ever wanted him to be. And because of David’s intense desire to be like the Most High, God was able to use him in a mighty way.

WHY SAUL WAS REJECTED

Even as a young man, David made the choice to follow after God. He might have seemed like an insignificant son of a man who had many sons. However, because of David’s choice, he became God’s choice for king.

But what had caused God to reject King Saul in the first place? First Samuel tells us that Saul rejected God before God rejected him as king.

Several years earlier, the children of Israel had asked for a king because they wanted to be like all the nations surrounding them. God chose Saul to be that man. At the time, Saul was a humble man who really loved God. In his early years as king, Saul often led Israel to victory over their enemies.

But things changed for Saul as the years passed by. Pride crept into his soul, and he began to think that he could do no wrong.

Then King Saul made a grave error at Israel’s battle with the Amalekites. God had instructed Saul, Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass (1 Sam. 15:3 KJV).

Saul didn’t follow those divine instructions, however. Verse 9 (KJV) tells us what Saul did instead of killing all the Amalekite people and livestock as God had commanded:

Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them: but every thing that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly.

Suddenly the word of the Lord came to Samuel in the night, saying, I greatly regret that I have set up Saul as king, for he has turned back from following Me, and has not performed My commandments (v. 11).

Samuel went to Saul, and Saul said to him, Blessed be thou of the LORD: I have performed the commandment of the LORD (1 Sam. 15:13 KJV).

All over the world, there are Christians who absolutely believe they are doing exactly what God told them to do, even though they are not doing what is written. Therefore, the only way they can believe that they are obeying God’s instructions is to live outside the parameters of God’s Word.

That was King Saul’s fatal mistake, and Samuel confronted him with it. The prophet asked Saul, If you followed God’s instructions so precisely, what is this bleating of sheep and lowing of oxen that I hear?

Oh, that? Saul said. We’re going to have a big sacrifice before the Lord! We’re going to perform our religious duty of worship before God because He has given us a great victory!

Samuel wasn’t fooled. He said, Be quiet, Saul! You have not obeyed the voice of the Lord. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, God has rejected you as king over Israel.

At first, Saul tried to make excuses for himself. But finally he admitted, I have sinned against God.

When people get caught in their wrongdoing, they often want to do whatever they need to do to get out of their uncomfortable situation. But seldom do they want to change from the inside out. Too many people live this type of outside Christianity every day of their lives; meanwhile, their hearts remain unchanged before God.

Even after Saul was told that the Lord had rejected him as king, Saul’s big concern was that Samuel would give him an external show of support by offering a sacrifice with him before the people.

From that time on, Saul was king of Israel in name, but not in heart, for God had already chosen his successor—a young man after His own heart.

A SOLID FOUNDATION

Here is something you have to understand in your pursuit to win God’s heart: every demonic attack that invades your life is aimed at destroying your foundation. The storms of life that infringe on your peace, cause discomfort or disillusionment, or steal your ability to live a life filled with God’s presence and power are designed to challenge the very truths upon which you have built your life.

That’s why Jesus warned us to be careful how we build our foundation:

But why do you call Me Lord, Lord, and do not do the things which I say? Whoever comes to Me, and hears My sayings and does them, I will show you whom he is like: He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently against that house, and could not shake it, for it was founded on the rock. But he who heard and did nothing is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation, against which the stream beat vehemently; and immediately it fell. And the ruin of that house was great. (Luke 6:46–49)

David was a man whose spiritual foundation remained intact, no matter how many storms beat upon it. David faced many hardships and adversities in his life, but that strong foundation was never shaken. No matter what happened to him, David never moved.

SEEING THE GIANT

FROM GOD’S PERSPECTIVE

An interesting characteristic is shared by those who choose to pursue God as David did. Wherever these believers go, the presence of God that they carry with them causes what is wrong in others’ lives to be revealed. At times they can make people angry just being in the same room! Meanwhile, these believers who have been branded by the Holy Spirit in their hearts stand there in innocence with absolutely no idea why people are upset with them. This very same thing happened to Stephen in Acts 7 when the mob recognized the Spirit of God upon him and then ran at him and stoned him to death.

These believers are not people who fit in and get along with the crowd. They have an entirely different thought pattern from that of the crowd. Why are they so different from others? Because they think from a divine perspective rather than from a human perspective.

This characteristic was certainly evident in David’s life. For instance, not long after Samuel had anointed the young man, Israel went to war against the Philistines. Jesse told David to take food to his older brothers, who were stationed out on the battlefield with the rest of the Israelite army.

While David was there, the Philistine giant named Goliath came out in front of all the Israelite soldiers to taunt them. The huge man,