“I have found David son of Jesse a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.” (Acts 13:22)
When I was a new believer, I remember struggling with today’s verse after reading through the story of David and Bathsheba. King David not only committed adultery with her to cover up his sin, he had her husband Uriah killed in battle. How in the world could God be speaking about David in this verse? Then my first mentor said to me, “Your problem is you think you are better than David” to which I replied, “Well, of course I do. I have not committed adultery or murder!”
Now, as you can imagine, that was the beginning of my mentoring in the all-important area of understanding the truth about the human heart. Here are two of the most foundational verses that mince no words in describing the human heart after the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
Genesis 6:5
The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.
Jeremiah 17:9
The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?
Before we are saved, our hearts beat continually for the sinful self. We want what we want and when we want it, regardless of the cost or circumstance. That truth was easy to learn. What was much harder to learn was the condition of the human heart after we are saved. Once saved by grace through faith, the heart begins to beat for the Savior, but not continually. Sometimes it beats for the Savior and other times it beats for the self. This truth helped me understand what God was saying about David and in essence, what God was saying about all of us.
Now hear this clearly and be encouraged. When God said David was a man after his own heart, He was not saying David’s heart beat perfectly for Him. No heart beats perfectly for God on this side of the grave. But David had given his heart to God and yet at times, it still beat for the sinful self. And the same is true for me and you.
Like David, we all commit spiritual adultery when our hearts beat for something smaller than Jesus and we all commit murder when we hate others. Yet, like David whose heart beat imperfectly for God, we are totally loved and completely forgiven.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Grace for the Race 