It’s A Heart Issue

The Bible says it’s a good thing to prepare our hearts to seek after God. This is what the Lord said to King Jehoshaphat when He went outside the Lord’s will by making a covenant with those who moved away from their worship of God to worship false gods.

Yet the Lord found good in Him saying, “Nevertheless good things are found in you, in that you have removed the wooden images from the land, and have prepared your heart to seek God.” (2 Chronicles 19:3)

God commended Jehoshaphat in how he prepared his heart to seek after Him, and He blessed Jehoshaphat giving Judah one its greatest victories, where they didn’t even have to lift a weapon in the battle, they only picked up the loot, 2 Chronicles 20.

But there was something else listed in that verse that needs to be understood. Jehoshaphat also removed the idols. This was one of the conditions of God’s promise in Psalm 24, that those who ascend to the Lord, those who of the generation of Jacob, that is, Jews, who seek after God are those who don’t lift their soul up to an idol, Psalm 24:4.

We must be willing to remove the idols from our lives, that is, we must be willing to remove everything that takes God’s place in our lives and in our families. Only then will we sincerely seek after God. We need to remove from our hearts and from our lives all those things that are offensive to God.

Next we are to seek the Lord with the whole of our heart.

To the children of Judah who were about to go into Babylonian in order to give them a hope for their future, the Lord said, “Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.” (Jeremiah 29:12-13)