“My Father seeks those who worships Me in spirit and in truth” (Jn. 4:24, paraphrased). God is seeking after the response of the human heart because He longs for it so much. I don’t know if you’ve ever been really in love before. I myself have never been romantically in love with another human. I have however been very deeply in love for others. I’m sure most of you have. When you’re really in love you so seek and long for a response in the heart of the person to know what’s in your heart. God’s heart is filled with love. Those of you who have felt the fire of love in your heart, whether romantically, or for a friend, or for a parent or a child, know how intense the longing is. I will say this, that longing is but a dim shadow of one facet of the love that dwells in God’s heart. God’s longing is much more intense than any of the five or ten types of human love we can experience. I believe the love we give and receive is nothing compared to the love that Christ holds in his heart.
The paradox of love: it has pain and pleasure. Either way it goes, though, it ends with God longing for, seeking after, searching for a response from the heart of human beings. Whatever love you’ve experienced, take it to an infinite degree, and then you begin to understand the passion and the pleasure of God’s own river, of His own
emotional makeup for His people. I have yet to experience the full capacity of this type of love. The emotional makeup of God is a fascinating reality. It’s the effortlessly flowing life of God, the river of God, that flows within His own heart and His own emotional makeup. God is looking for a response. The lover always wants a response from the one who is loved. The parent craves a response from the child that he or she loves. The child craves a response from the heart of the mother or father. In the romantic sense, even in the deep friendship sense, there’s a longing, a craving, when love is fully ablaze and comes to boil. “The Lord has sought for Himself a man after His own heart” This is what’s behind the sentence, “God has sought for. . .” Whenever God seeks for a human response, a human heart, you know that there’s a tremendous, fierce power behind the thing that’s in the heart of God. I so little understand this aspect of God’s personality, but I love it. It’s the violent love in the heart of God. Earlier I quoted John 4:24. Jesus says, “I seek for worshipers.” Oh, I love that. He seeks for lovers who understand His love. He seeks for people to understand the love. He seeks for people to reciprocate His love. God loves it when we understand His love. God has such delight in planning your pleasure.
Satan then comes in and tries to rob us from the love of God. Satan comes and accuses our heart to us. He tells us that were on the end of the string, at the limit of
His patients “He’s about finished. He’s about to crush us.” He lies about the heart of God to us. The he lies about our heart to us. When we stumble in our immaturity, he calls us a rebel; he calls us a hypocrite. The truth is that we are a lover of God, but were immature. Satan calls us a rebel and a hopeless hypocrite. He lies to us about our heart. First he lies to us about God’s heart. Satan has been so effective in lying to the Church about God’s heart that the world has all these lies about God’s heart. It’s horrible. Satan blinds the minds of the people from the glory of God (2 Cor. 4:4). The glory of God isn’t just the cross. It’s a pretty big statement; the cross is pretty awesome. It’s the most awesome event of history. The glory of God is the heart that pounds within God’s emotional makeup that made the cross happen. The glory of God isn’t just what He did. It’s why He did it. There’s a river of pleasure in the heart of God. He has delight in planning your pleasure. He delights in communicating it and expressing it. He has delight in watching you discover it. He has delight in watching you communicate your heart back to Him.
Remember that what ever lies are said to you that they are just that, lies. It is not the truth of what God says about you. He is seeking and looking for you to love Him back. Let the fire of love rise up in you and fill you.
