As we progress forward in our relationship with God through the Lord Jesus Christ, we will be required to frequently give ourselves a check-up from the neck-up. But not only will we have to hold our thoughts up to the truth of God’s Word to see if we are on point, but we will need to check our hearts. We will need to ask ourselves if we are truly following after God or if we are following after the desires of our hearts.
The desires of our hearts are very persuasive, and we all think that there is an urgency for those desires to be met, but God does not operate according to our timing. This is very difficult for many of us to handle, especially given the ‘on the double’ mentality and attitude that is prevalent in these modern times. People want results as easy and quickly as possible, and when it appears that things are taking longer than they’d like, they attempt to take matters into their own hands and force the issue. This almost always ends with results that are less than they had hoped.
In Matthew 6:19-21(NLT), Jesus Christ said, “19 Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. 21 Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.” Our minds and hearts point to the things we value and treasure most in life. We can’t fake this, because God knows what is in our hearts, and if we are valuing the manifestation of our desires more than we are valuing the honor of loving and pleasing God, our hearts are in trouble. Jesus Christ commanded us in Matthew 6:33 to seek God above all other things. This means that pursuing God and His righteousness should be our number one agenda, but for many of us, this isn’t the case.
God’s requirement is that we store up treasures of a spiritual kind, and they must be the kind of spiritual treasures that can be stored in heaven. This means we must treasure God’s love, righteousness, generosity, kindness, compassion, faithfulness, and honesty so much that we do everything with those same qualities. When we operate from God’s abundance, we are laying up treasures, but when we operate from our own desires, and we’re just trying to get what we can get from God, He sees right through it.
The devil will test the treasure of our hearts to see if we’re like Job, only worshiping God for His blessings and not for who He is. This is one of the reasons that we should never become discouraged when our prayer request takes longer to manifest and come to pass. When we are praying and pressing into God for a blessing, the enemy will accuse us of all kinds of things in order to keep us separated from the blessing. But we must prove that we desire God more than anything else, and we should be willing to wait until our faithfulness to Heavenly Father is proven.
The Apostle Paul said in Philippians 3:14(NLT), “I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.” To press is to keep our thoughts and emotions in check so that we are always thinking and feeling in a way that brings glory to God. He expects us to be sold out on His goodness, and if we are, our thoughts and emotions will reflect it. We will not be easily persuaded to give up our faith, but we will cling to God. During the difficult times when our desires are taking longer than we expected to manifest, we must not give up hope. We must be steadfast and remain continually in Christ. God is faithful, and He will bring His promises to pass in our lives if we trust and love Him with our whole hearts.■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
“Sold-out on God’s Goodness”, written by KLizzie, edited by Reverend Fran Mack, for Sundie Morning Sistas ©2021. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord! SMS is dedicated to inspiring and encouraging Christian Women through the Word of God.