God's Heart

    As we begin this blog our hearts are burdened for the church.  In our circles of friends and in the churches we have been to there appears to a great lack of knowledge and teaching of God's Word.  We have a surface knowledge of God and His Word but we don't normally go deep enough to really have God change us.  We don't want to talk about the commands in God's Word that make us uncomfortable, or that challenge our culture or our "rights."  We have adopted the world's idea that what is right for me is right for me and what is right for you is right for you. As Christians we have spiritualized it by saying "What God wants for me may be different than what He wants for you.  So don't you dare "attack or judge" my beliefs, it is between me and God.  If you do, I will be quick to call you a legalist because I don't want anyone (including God?) to tell me what to do."  This sounds a lot like the oft repeated phrase in Judges "In those days ... everyone did as he saw fit."
    Perhaps the most crucial issue before us today is the issue of life.  Ravi Zacharias stated that the basis of human rights begins with "a 'right' to exist."  Most of us immediately think of abortion and we know it is wrong.  But do we realize that most of us are purposing daily to keep life from even beginning.  We are acting in accordance with our culture of death without most of us even realizing that we are doing it.  Is this God's design, is this His heart, do our practices have specific scriptural backing? 
    We must begin by asking ourselves some basic questions.  Do I know what He says? Do I know what is in His heart?  Or, do I really want to know?  Am I scared His Word might say something that would make me feel guilty or tell me to do something that I don't want to do?  In 1 Samuel 2:35 God says He is looking for someone"who will do according to what is in [His] heart and mind."  Then chapter 13 says that "The Lord has sought out a man after His own heart and appointed him leader of His people, [not Saul] because [he had] not kept the Lord's command."  Jesus says "If you love Me, you will obey what I command" (John 14:15).
    What is the Lord's command concerning life?  In the beginning God makes His heart and design clear.  Genesis 1:28 says "God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it."  God says this again after Noah and his family came off the ark, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth" (Gen.9:1). 
    Some of us may think that this was an Old Testament command and that we don't have to obey it anymore.  However, this predates the Law.  It was a command given at the foundation of our earth's creation.  In the New Testament Jesus quotes from Genesis and thus validates it's use and relevance today.
Some of us may think this command was only for the generation meant to "fill" the earth and now it is "full" so this command no longer applies to us.  However, contrary to the myth of overpopulation, our world is not overpopulated.  The media has indoctrinated the public with this myth in order to accomplish Satan's design, which is death.  A deeper study of "overpopulation" reveals the truth.  God's commands and "precepts are always right, giving joy to the heart" (Ps. 19:8).
    We have so much more to say about this ... but for now we leave with this question:  Am I truly a person after God's own heart or am I a person after my own heart?