Blessing the heart of God
Deuteronomy chapter 5 gives us a little insight to what truly blesses the heart of God. Let's take a look and see what Israel did to please the Lord.
Israel. They seem to go frequently from following the Lord and His commands to worshipping golden idols. Reading through the Old Testament, you see numerous occasions that Israel goes from honoring the Lord almost immediately to making Him so angry that the Lord has to sharply discipline them. Sound familiar? Do our lives (I mean you and I mean me) seem to ebb and flow rapidly through periods where we a so in tune with the Lord following His commands, and then there are other times we are so distant and just asking for a whoopin'. Maybe it's just me that's like that.
Anyways, if you are in the place in your life right now that you really want to honor and bless the Lord then pay attention to Deuteronomy 5:24-29. This chapter in God's Word details to us how God delivered the 10 commandments to Israel. God spoke them loudly to Moses up on the mountain, then He wrote them down on tablets for Moses to take back to Israel. Well, while God was talking so loudly to Moses, the nation of Israel heard God speaking to Moses from the distance, and so they sent some of their leaders to Moses to express a significant concern they had about this. Let's examine their concern in verses 24-27, as follows:
They said, 'The LORD our God has shown us his glory and greatness, and we have heard his voice from the heart of the fire. Today we have seen God speaking to humans, and yet we live! But now, why should we die? If the LORD our God speaks to us again, we will certainly die and be consumed by this awesome fire. Can any living thing hear the voice of the living God from the heart of the fire and yet survive? You go and listen to what the LORD our God says. Then come and tell us everything he tells you, and we will listen and obey.'
So they are pretty concerned that they will die if they hear the voice of the Lord yet again. They felt that no living creature could hear His voice and not be consumed by His awesome presence. So they tried to encourage Moses to keep his conversations private with the Lord and at a safe distance. Then whatever the Lord said to Moses for them to do, they would do it. This seems pretty different from how we interact today with the Lord where we "seek His presence directly and call upon His Spirit to fall fresh us on us". While certainly our position today for those of us in Christ affords us new opportunities in our relationship with this same Lord of the Old Testament, I hope we don't get too cocky and arrogant on our quest for His presence. That aside, I do find the Lord's response to Israel's request provides us some real clues to what sort of behavior truly blesses His heart. Let's look at verses 28 and 29:
"The LORD heard your request and said to me [Moses], 'I have heard what the people have said to you, and they are right. Oh, that they would always have hearts like this, that they might fear me and obey all my commands! If they did, they and their descendants would prosper forever.
The Lord, the same Lord we serve today, was blessed by their reverence for Him. He was blessed by the rightful position they took as creation to the Creator. He was honored by their desire to obey Him by accepting the words of His messenger Moses. He desired His people would always have hearts like this.
Our position in Christ really does allow us to come boldly to the throne, and certainly we no longer need messengers like Moses as our sole mechanism to obtain God's direction, for we have His Written Word and the Holy Spirit to guide us.
But do you have a high regard for Him? Do you remember that He is the Creator and we are the creature? Do you truly desire to obey Him and His Word? Do you accept the words of His messengers to us (i.e. your pastor and spiritual leaders)? And most of all, do you always have a heart like this?
If so, I know you'd be blessing His heart in a tremendous way.