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In the previous blog in our “The Heart of a Worshipper” series (HWS) we looked at the first condition of the heart of a worshipper: it is a heart that is hungry for more of God. In this blog, we continue to look at the qualities of the worshipping heart. May you be blessed and transformed as you grow in your own worship of the King of Kings.

A Hungry Heart 
The first condition of the heart of a worshipper that we looked at is a heart that is hungry for more of God. Psalm 42, verses 1 and 2 describe the condition well:

          ¹    As the deer pants for streams of water,
            so my soul pants for you, O God.
       ²    My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
          When can I go and meet with God?

Verse 2b tells us where a hungry heart leads us – to a desire to meet with God. Proverbs 16:26 says:

“The laborer’s appetite works for him; his hunger drives him on.”

Satisfying the Hungry Heart
When the condition of our heart is that we are hungry for God, the response of our heart is to pursue Him more aggressively. Spiritual hunger is fed by pursuing God. A pursuing heart is one that is trying to satisfy the hunger for God that is within it.

In His book The God Chasers, Tommy Tenney explains his title like this:

“A God Chaser is a person whose hunger for God exceeds his grasp…whose passion for God’s presence presses him to chase the impossible, in hopes that the Uncatchable might catch him.”

He goes on to say that the chase begins with worship – recognizing Who God is. Become a “God Chaser” Pray “Lord, make me a God-Chaser!” Chase after God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength – He will not disappoint you!

A Pursuing Heart
Let’s look at Deuteronomy 4:29:

“But if from there you seek the LORD your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul.”

The word for “seek” is baqash (baw-kash’) which means to search out (by any method, spec. in worship or prayer); to strive after, ask, beg, beseech, desire, enquire, get, make inquisition, procure, (make) request, require, seek (for).

That same word is used in Jeremiah 29:13 “You will seek (baqash) me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” What a great promise! But God doesn’t stop there. He goes on to say in verse 14 “I will be found by you.” These verses provide a prayer that we can be confident is always in God’s will: “Lord, I want to know You more. Teach me more of Your ways.” God will satisfy the hunger in our heart when we pursue Him.

Baqash is the word used in the Old Testament; there’s a similar word used in the New Testament: zeteo (dzay-teh’-o). It means to seek (lit. or fig.); spec. (by Heb.) to worship (God),to desire, endeavour, enquire (for), require, seek (after, for, means). This word is used in Matthew 7:7-8.

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek (zeteo) and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks (zeteo) finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.”

Again, God promises that we will find Him when we pursue Him.

Zeteo was also used by Paul in his sermon at Mars Hill. Acts 17:24-28 is a passage worthy of meditating on in worship:

The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek (zeteo) him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’

Wow! God did all this, he created this world and mankind and determined the time in which we were to live and the exact places where we should live…why? So that men and women would SEEK him. God’s desire is that we seek Him. He makes us hungry, then rewards us with a stronger relationship with Him.

Let’s look at 2 more verses that give us God’s perspective and response to those with a hungry and pursuing heart:

“I love those who love me, and those who seek me find me.” Proverbs 8:17

“Let them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for men, for he satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things.” Psalm 107:8-9

God’s ways truly are not our ways. He loves us beyond our understanding, and He’s implanted in us a desire to know us. He created and controls the entire universe for the purpose of bringing you into a greater loving relationship with Him.

A hungry heart develops into a pursuing heart. If you have a hungry heart, don’t ignore your hunger pains. Don’t put yourself on a spiritual diet. Know that it is God Himself who has made you hungry and wants to satisfy that hunger by revealing more of Himself to you. Pursue God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. Do it today!

During this Christmas season, it seems that all my prayers look toward Good Friday more than Christmas – toward the death of Jesus on the cross instead of the baby born in a manger. When my husband pointed this out to me, I began to reflect on it. Christmas, the season of rejoicing at the birth of a Savior, is inextricably linked with Good Friday, a day of extreme sorrow. Christmas, the day of the birth of a King, stands next to Easter, the day of the murder of a King. Hmmm.

The more I reflected on it, the more I realized how appropriate this juxtapositioning is – because the entire purpose of Christ’s birth was fulfilled in His death and resurrection. Without Christ’s death and resurrection, His birth would have simply been a footnote in history. Instead, his birth, life, death and resurrection are the turning point of history.

The angel Gabriel declared the purpose of Jesus’ life to Joseph in a dream when he said “And she [Mary] will have a son, and you are to name Him Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21, NLT).

Jesus’ purpose for being born was to save His people from their sins! What a lofty sounding destiny! Of course, another way of saying it is much less lofty sounding – Jesus was born to die! You see, the payment that is required for our sin is death. Someone must make that payment. Christ was born so that He could make the payment for us. His death enables us to bypass death and experience life forever.

Christ also suffered when He died for our sins once for all time. He never sinned, but He died for sinners that He might bring us safely home to God. He suffered physical death, but He was raised to life in the Spirit. 
      1 Peter 3:18, NLT

For the wages of [required payment for] sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.
      Romans 6:23, NLT (bracketed words are my amplification)

Christ was born to die, and it was a destiny that He obviously knew from some very early age. I can’t help but wonder how knowing that His destiny was to die affected the way He lived His life. How would it affect mine? How about yours?

And then it hit me…we do have that destiny! Read this passage:

It is destined for each person to die once, and after that to face judgment.
      Hebrews 9:27, (my paraphrase)

We are also destined to die! After our death comes judgment. For those who have accepted God’s free gift of eternal life, we are raised from the death, just as Jesus was, to live eternally with God. For those who have not accepted God’s free gift of eternal life, death rules in judgment.

I find myself agreeing with Paul who wrote the following to the Corinthians:

¹As God’s partners, we beg you not to reject this marvelous message of God’s great kindness. ²For God says,
    ”At just the right time, I heard you.
    On the day of salvation, I helped you.”
Indeed, God is ready to help you right now. Today is the day of salvation.
      2 Corinthians 6:1-2, NLT

What does it mean to accept God’s free gift? It means to agree with Him and give Him control of your life. Agree first that you have done wrong and need His forgiveness. Believe that Christ died on the cross as the payment required for your wrongdoing. Yield your will to God’s will by determining to live according to His plans for your life instead of your own plans.

Then set about learning more and more about what those plans are. Because although our destiny might be to die and face judgment one day, God also has purposes and plans for our lives that go beyond ourselves.

My [Jesus'] purpose is to give life in all its fullness.
John 10:10b, NLT

¹¹For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 
      Jeremiah 29:11, NIV

Accepting God’s free gift of salvation not only brings eternal life, it also enlarges our earthly life. Can you dare miss out on such a “marvelous” opportunity to receive “God’s great kindness?”

Have you ever wondered if you’re fulfilling your purpose? Most of us have at one time or another.

In Jeremiah 13, Jeremiah tells us about when the Lord told him to take the linen belt he was wearing and to hide it in a hole among the rocks at the Euphrates river. Later, God told him to dig up the belt. When he did so, it was (verse 7) “mildewed and falling apart” (NLT), “ruined” and “good for nothing” (NRSV). It was “completely useless” (NIV). God then gives the explanation of the prophetic object lesson:

The LORD says: This illustrates how I will rot away the pride of Judah and Jerusalem. These wicked people refuse to listen to me. They stubbornly follow their own desires and worship idols. Therefore, they will become like this linen belt-good for nothing! As a belt clings to a person’s waist, so I created Judah and Israel to cling to me,” says the LORD. “They were to be my people, my pride, my glory-an honor to my name. But they would not listen to me.”
Jeremiah 13:9-11 (NLT)

While this is a specific prophecy about the Israelites, God says that they were created to cling to Him. That they were created to cling to God isn’t impacted by the prophecy. It is a statement of truth. As Christians, we have also been created to cling to God.

Are you fulfilling your purpose? Are you clinging to God? Or is your pride or following your own desires and worshipping your own idols getting in the way? I know sometimes my priorities get a bit out of whack and I need to be reminded that I was created to cling to God.

Lord, help me to cling to you.

Until three years ago, I was a life-long suburbanite and I loved it. Then I discovered small town living! My town is so small (how small is it?) that my husband and I got our picture in the paper last week (page one of Section B)…because we had our more-or-less annual “Hovatter Hot Dog Day.” Which being interpreted means we had about 40 friends over for a backyard weenie roast. And it made the local paper!

It took quite a bit of getting used to, this small town living, but it’s been a delight to us all along the way. We are “townies,” but within 5 minutes of getting in the car I can be driving through corn fields or past my favorite sheep or cows. Within about fifteen minutes, I can be deep into corn field driving. And every Thursday morning I spend a good half hour driving through corn, soybean and wheat fields on my way to a weekly business meeting.

Which brings me to the subject of this blog. DeKalb corn (that’s the brand whose logo is a flying ear of corn) has a slogan on all their signs that gets me thinking most Thursday mornings.

DeKalb Corn
Strong Roots
Strong Yields

I’ve been praying that my life would become like DeKalb corn! Apparently (and actually I know almost nothing about corn), DeKalb propagates their corn to develop especially strong roots. The results of being “well rooted” is, in their words, “strong yields.” In other words, having strong roots means that the plants will produce lots of corn.

Scripture has something to say about strong roots. The most commonly quoted passage is in Jeremiah:17:7-8:

“But blessed are those who trust in the LORD and have made the LORD their hope and confidence. They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they go right on producing delicious fruit.” (NLT)

Trusting in the Lord grows strong roots within us – roots that nourish us in times of heat and drought and enable us to prosper, continuing to produce delicious fruit. And producing delicious fruit is what Jesus said we were “appointed” to do (John 15:11). Colossians 2:6-7a reiterates the message: “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, just as you were taught…” (NRSV).

          Lord, I want to have strong yields.

As I continued to think about the phrase “strong yields,” it occurred to me that there is an additional meaning to the word yield. It can mean “to bring forth” as described above. It can also mean “to surrender or relinquish to the physical control of another : hand over possession of” (Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary). And I couldn’t help but think how appropriate the slogan was when that meaning was considered. When my roots are strong, when I have been “built up in Him and established in the faith,” my ability to yield control of my life to Him becomes much “stronger.” It happens more quickly and in more difficult situations.

          Lord, I want to yield strongly.

Well, all of this eventually drove me to DeKalb’s website to read about their strong rooted, strong yielding corn. (Yes, I guess I am a bit nerdy.) Slogans being what they are, I only learned about the strong roots and yields from their flying corncob road signs. From their website I learned that there is a third distinction: strong stalks. What good are strong stalks? Well, apparently, strong stalks improves “standability.”

“Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand”  (Ephesians 6:13, NIV). Sounds like another way of impressing upon us that we are to “live [our] lives in Him.”

          Lord, I want to still be standing after the battles you send my way.

At the risk of belaboring the point too much, the DeKalb website throws in an extra advantage: “better drydown.” In short, the corn is drier at harvest time, requiring less effort (and therefore expense) on the part of the farmer to get the corn ready for market. In other words, DeKalb corn requires less “babying.” Strong roots really do have benefits! 

“We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.” Ephesians 4:14-15

          Lord, help me to grow strong roots.

I’l bet many of you know Jeremiah 17:7-8. It’s an often quoted passage. I love to read it.

But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit. (NIV)

Did you know that it follows Jeremiah 17:5-6? I’m guessing maybe you didn’t. Or at least you don’t know verses 5 and 6 as well as you know verses 7 and 8.

This is what the LORD says: “Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the LORD. He will be like a bush in the wastelands; he will not see prosperity when it comes. He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives. (NIV)

This is not the only place in Scripture where God clearly lays out the basis for blessings and curses. I’m so thankful He does that. He doesn’t make me wonder what it takes to gain His approval. And He doesn’t bury His instructions in the middle of complicated discussions I can’t understand. He says simply “This is what the Lord says: ‘Cursed is the one who trusts in man…But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord…”

Such a simple statement…sometimes so hard to implement. I’m afraid that I put my trust in mere humans more often than I think. I may not consciously turn my heart from the Lord, but there is a subtleness to turning our hearts away from God and toward humans or things humans have made that creeps into my daily life.

When I need to finish a work project before the end of the day am I trusting in my own strength or am I trusting in the Lord? When I have to see a doctor, am I trusting in the doctor or in the Lord? Don’t hear what I’m not saying. I’m not suggesting that I don’t work hard to finish the project or that I don’t see a doctor when I’m sick. But even doing those things, I can have an attitude of trusting God or trusting in man.

What keeps this attitude alive in you from day to day, moment to moment? Here’s 7 ideas. Pick one or two and begin to practice or work on improving in that area:

1. Start every day by greeting the Lord and acknowledging Him as sovereign over all that will happen that day.
2. Train yourself to pray often — when things are going well and when things are falling apart. Quick sentence prayers connect you to God on an ongoing basis.
3. Put things in front of you that will remind you to look to God. That might be a note in your DayTimer or on your bathroom mirror, a screensaver on your computer, or a bracelet around your wrist. Use anything that will remind you to seek God.
4. Learn to see God at work and in nature. Learning to see Him requires looking for him, so train yourself to look for Him by pausing several times to look around and ask God to reveal Himself to you in your surroundings. (Yes, that means pausing from your busy-ness.)
5. Read about spiritual formation and spiritual disciplines. Try any of these books: The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence. There’s an updated version in modern English. The Life You’ve Always Wanted: Spiritual Disciplines for Ordinary People by John Ortberg Celebration of Disciplines: The Path to Spiritual Growth by Richard Foster The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer
6. Stop reading and practice what you’re learning!
7. Be grateful. I think grateful goes beyond thankful. It’s easy to be thankful but grateful goes all the way to the heart. The difference in the definition of these two words in the Merriam-Webster online dictionary (www.m-w.com/dictionary/) is interesting. Here’s an example:

• thankful: conscious of benefit received
• grateful: appreciative of benefits received b: expressing gratitude
• Additional definitions carry the same theme — thankful is a consciousness of benefits while grateful is an appreciation of benefits. I want to not only be thankful for what God has done, is doing and will do; I want also to be grateful.

I love the illustration God uses earlier in Jeremiah: “As a belt clings to a person’s waist, so I created Judah and Israel to cling to me,” says the LORD.” (Jeremiah 13:11a, NLT).

Lord, we were created to cling to You. Help me to cling to You every minute of every day!

Let me know if there are things you’d add to my list of 7. Which of the 7 is easiest for you? Which is most difficult?