Wholehearted Love

There is a path to wholehearted love for God in the Bible. Wholehearted love is different than sincere love. There are many who sincerely love God, but they give Him a comfortable and small place in a part of their lives. Wholehearted is rare...it is different. Wholehearted is complete abandon to God...making Him the superior pleasure in your life. Everything else becomes negotiable when you are wholehearted for God.

So how does a person end up wholehearted? Is it just that some are born that way? Read their Bible more than others? Journal more? No. Even Jesus said you can't read your way into this:

John 5:39-40 “You search the Scriptures because you think they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to me! Yet you refuse to come to me to receive this life.

Okay, Tom....so where does it come from, this zeal for God...this wholeheartedness???

This is the best kept secret in the Bible and in the Church...although it is open and plain to see. It is so simple anyone can do it, and so simple, almost no one does...even as I write this out, I realize the vast majority will simply read it and move on...most just write it off and will not even try it. This method to obtaining more of the kingdom was designed by God to be a living riddle. Until you want it, it will never work. Knowing the secret will do you no good until you are ready to want it....

Reading your Bible won't do it. Although, one of the results should be that you naturally want to read your Bible more. Journaling won't do it, although journaling will certainly follow. It isn't loving people more, though if it is working, loving people must be evidence of it. It isn't understanding a new depth of the sacrifice of the cross, though you will...

The secret is plain to see. It is as simple as the air you breathe. It is a secret called "desire." Everyone gets what they want. Your heart aches for what you desire....naturally. you actually let your mind land upon what you desire several times a day. It takes almost no effort to "want" what you desire. You naturally...nearly without effort, send your emotions, your mind, and your will towards whatever it is you have trained your desire upon.

Desire is why a cigarette addict will dig through the trash to find the pack of cigarettes they threw away a few hours ago, uncrumple them, and actually smoke one. Desire is why someone will go to a county fair to see Cheap Trick barely make it through the old songs they once belted out in stadiums. Desire is why another will watch a Seinfeld rerun for the 100th time, even though they could perform the lines better than George or Kramer. It is why one could be on food stamps and still find a way to have an iphone, and another will stand in line for 5 hours on the morning after Thanksgiving to save 20 bucks on a gift they are going to give to someone else. Desire is why one will sit silently in the woods for hours every fall hoping a 12 point will come by, so they could take a shot at it and spend more hours arranging to deal with its bloody, furry, messy carcass (gory point intended)...

...and desire is why God made man, and planted a powerful capacity within him to "desire back." This isn't some philosophical observation, this is the entire secret to life: you get whatever it is you train your desire on. You have been given the reins of your desire, in the hopes you will steer it back to God and get life in full. God wants to give you a full exciting, risky, adventurous, fulfilling...satisfying...life with Him, and He is infinitely equipped to provide it, but he will not violate your desire....your free will to want.

Your desire is a POWERFUL 350 horse motor, and God put the steering wheel in your hands. For this simple reason, the secret to wholeheartedness for God is this: ask for it like you mean it.

Asking and receiving is what Jesus did, this is what Paul taught...Peter, James, John...this is the truth the entire Bible is built upon. James said it like this:

James 3:3-5 We can make a large horse go wherever we want by means of a small bit in its mouth. And a small rudder makes a huge ship turn wherever the pilot chooses to go, even though the winds are strong. In the same way, the tongue is a small thing that makes grand speeches. But a tiny spark can set a great forest on fire.

Most people will make no effort to steer their desire. They will let their emotions control what they want. Others will let their physical appetites (sex, hunger, and every form of addiction) control their desire (like the cigarette example...i know this one from experience). Others will not take the time to imagine and desire the better life God has made perfectly available to them, they will simply want what they see someone else has (nice family, nice house, better car, better job, better vacation....the grass is ALWAYS greener) and think that is somehow the "good life" they desire...


James 4:1-3, 16 What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Don’t they come from the evil desires at war within you? You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it. And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure. Otherwise you are boasting about your own plans, and all such boasting is evil.

God will give you whatever you desire. But this is the trick: Desire determines the course of your next 100 billion years...for real. It is weighty stuff. Because of this, God makes sure that shallow thing you want is what YOU REALLY desire before handing it over to you. This process can take years or decades if your desire is trained on the wrong thing...this is God's mercy...for it is a dreadful and terrible thing to be handed over to your desire if it is anything less than what God wants for you....much worse if it is something depraved. It is a sad truth that many among us spend countless nights desiring something deeply that will absolutely consume and destroy them if it were to be handed to them in full.

So wholeheartedness for Jesus is the ONE THING...the one desire that you can steer yourself to that will never disappoint...will always bring new life, will empower you to do great unimaginable things...to love, and to wait, and to be generous, and forgiving, and long suffering, and slow to anger, and full of joy no matter the circumstance...singing in prison, and writing vast love letters that will move hearts for centuries while still actually in chains yourself. Jesus called training your desire on God to be the greatest commandment:

Mark 12:30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment.

For this reason Jesus should be what we desire, what we seek:

Matthew 6:33 But seek (desire) first the kingdom of God and His righteousness (to be like Jesus), and all these things (everything lesser you are tempted to desire that is good for you) shall be added to you.

Jesus said we seek the kingdom with our words...just like James did...by asking, out loud is best, the invisible God who gives great things to those who ask. The more you ask, the more you get. Want a hunger and thirst for Jesus? Ask once a day, and you will get a once a day measure....ask once an hour...let's say 12 times a day... "Jesus, give me more hunger and thirst for you"...and you will get 12 times more....it REALLY is that simple. So simple anyone can do it...so simple almost no one will....because they simply don't desire it. If you don't want it, the secret will do you no good.

Matthew 7:7-11 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!

What you desire...your goal...what you gaze on...is what steers your tounge. "I wish I could just have ...." those words will steer your desire...like the rudder of a ship, or the bit in the horses mouth!

Train your eye on more of what Jesus said is good, and your tounge will follow....and your whole life will be flooded with light and living water. Train your eye on your neighbors car, or the winning lottery ticket, or another form of cheap entertainment to numb you for the evening, and that is what will steer your tounge (or put it to rest)...and your life will literally be filled with less light. You get what you want.

Matthew 6:22-23 “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

2 Chronicles 1:7, 10-12 That night God appeared to Solomon and said, “What do you want? Ask, and I will give it to you!” ....Give me the wisdom and knowledge to lead them properly, for who could possibly govern this great people of yours?” God said to Solomon, “Because your greatest desire is to help your people, and you did not ask for wealth, riches, fame, or even the death of your enemies or a long life, but rather you asked for wisdom and knowledge to properly govern my people— I will certainly give you the wisdom and knowledge you requested. But I will also give you wealth, riches, and fame such as no other king has had before you or will ever have in the future!”