Whole Heart

Mark 1:15
and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.”

James 4:7 Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.

Psalm 9:1
I will praise You, O Lord, with my whole heart; I will tell of all Your marvelous works.

Psalm 111:1
Praise the Lord! I will praise the Lord with my whole heart, In the assembly of the upright and in the congregation.

Psalm 119:2
Blessed are those who keep His testimonies, Who seek Him with the whole heart!

Psalm 119:10
With my whole heart I have sought You; Oh, let me not wander from Your commandments!

Psalm 119:34
Give me understanding, and I shall keep Your law; Indeed, I shall observe it with my whole heart.

Psalm 119:58
I entreated Your favor with my whole heart; Be merciful to me according to Your word.

Psalm 119:145
I cry out with my whole heart; Hear me, O Lord! I will keep Your statutes.

Psalm 138:1
I will praise You with my whole heart; Before the gods I will sing praises to You.

Jeremiah 3:10
"And yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah has not turned to Me with her whole heart, but in pretense," says the Lord.

2 Chronicles 7:14
if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

Jeremiah 29:13
And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.

Proverbs 3
5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
6 In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths.

1 Corinthians 2:5
that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

Romans 7:18
For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find.

How do we achieve this state of seeking the Lord with our whole heart, of being totally sold out to God, of being 100% submitted to Him? It is by the grace that Jesus Himself gives us!

Jeremiah 24:7
Then I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am the Lord; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God, for they shall return to Me with their whole heart.

Hebrews 4:15 For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.

Jesus in His kindness and mercy gives us the grace to come to Him, and His grace overcomes the weakness of our own heart and makes us perfect before God and draws us into His presence.

Matthew 13:7 And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them.

Matthew 13:22 Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful.

The cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches. These are things that choke the word, Jesus said. These are DISTRACTIONS. These are things that take the place of God on the throne of our hearts. If we worry about these things, it is the same thing as IDOLOTRY. That is why Jesus said to us in Matthew 6:21 "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

Matthew 6:25 “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?

28 “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; 29 and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

31 “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble."

Worry is the worship of the world; it is the same thing as listening to the voice of the devil instead of the voice of God.

Matthew 14:28 And Peter answered Him and said, “Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water.”

29 So He said, “Come.” And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. 30 But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink he cried out, saying, “Lord, save me!”

31 And immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and caught him, and said to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” 32 And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased.

Why did Peter sink?

He stopped looking at Jesus and paid attention to the wind and the waves instead. But Jesus in His mercy grabbed up Peter, and when Jesus was let into the boat, the wind ceased.

So it is when we pray. If we are distracted, we need to simply look to Jesus and ask Him for His grace. We cannot do battle with our own flesh, but we simply need to look unto Jesus for the grace. Let Him into your boat, and the winds will cease.

Keep in mind that it was impossible for Peter to be walking on water. The only reason he was able to do that was because of his faith in Jesus. And in the same way, it is equally impossible for us to come into God's presence. We cannot come into God's throneroom. Only by the grace and the Spirit of Jesus, through His cleansing blood, do we have the right the become the children of God, and only by His grace do we have the ability to enter into the presence of God, and only by the faith that He provides us do we have the ability to be filled with His Spirit.

James 1:6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

Only God's grace can give us that single mind, that heart that seeks after God, and only by looking to Jesus can we obtain that grace, which comes through the faith that Jesus authored and finished for us.

Hebrews 12:2
looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Jesus is the source of our faith and the completion of our faith.

Romans 8:13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

Notice that it is only by the Spirit that we put to death the deeds of the flesh. We cannot fight the flesh in the flesh. We can't put to death the deeds of the flesh while we are under the dominion of the flesh. We have to submit ourselves unto God, place our faith in Jesus, and rely on His mercy.

Luke 18:13 "And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ 14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."