“Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”
Psalm 37:4(NIV)
The desires of your heart can teach you a lot about the faith and loyalty God desires. These two, faith and loyalty, are very important lessons of God’s love, and they are especially important to our relationship with Him. Our Heavenly Father tells us that He is a Rewarder! That is indeed good news! A rewarder is someone who rewards. It’s someone that compensates, and compensation is a little different than a gift. Compensation is awarded to a person for his or her efforts. In many ways, it is an exchange, because we are putting forth energy and effort to achieve a standard or service that has value. It is of such value, in fact, that it is deemed worthy of reward. When it comes to His children, God is the One who rewards, and He is the One that sets the value and worthiness of exactly what it is He will reward. He said in Jeremiah 17:10(NLT), “But I, the LORD, search all hearts and examine secret motives. I give all people their due rewards, according to what their actions deserve.”
In our careers, jobs, and chosen professions, we understand how compensation works, and we understand it very well. It wouldn’t occur to us to put in one or two weeks of work and not be compensated for it. We trust our bosses and the companies that employ us to dole out our paychecks and to do so on time. We also understand that if we refuse to expend the necessary energy and effort to fulfill our end of the employment contract between us and our employers, we will not get paid, and we may even be terminated. So, most of us understand both sides. We understand our duty to carry forth what is expected of us, and we also understand the company’s obligation to compensate this.
God is perfect in every way. He is THE REWARDER, and He is not slack at all. He knows everything there is to know about us. He knows our motivation and our hearts. He knows when we’re doing things that are of value and warrant rewards, and He knows when they don’t. Our responsibility to God is infinitely higher than our responsibility to anything or any human being in the earth. He tells us in Hebrews 11:6(NKJV), “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” When God tells us that something is impossible, we had best believe that it is. We cannot please Heavenly Father without having faith in Him. Remember, He’s the One that sets the value of what He compensates. He is letting us know that faith has infinite value. He treasures our faith, and we must have faith in Him to please Him. By understanding this, you and I have a gauge for measuring the importance of our faith in God, and we also can be confident that if we’re as committed as He requires, He will reward us.
What are God’s rewards?
The life we receive when we come into the world is a blessing in and of itself. We don’t have to do anything more than breathe the breath of life in order to be abundantly blessed, because we’re here, we’re alive, and we have everything we need to love God. So, we’re blessed when we come here, but as we grow and mature, so do our needs and desires. We need things to facilitate and express more of who we are. Our desire for more comes as our minds and hearts seek fuller expression. Our responsibility as God’s children is to make sure that our needs and desires are in harmony with the example of Christ. We must make sure that we are seeking to expand and increase according to the example Christ has set for us, and according to God’s plan and purpose for our lives. We must never forget that He’s the One with the plan (Jeremiah 29:11), and Proverbs 19:21 tells us that although we can come up with all sorts of plans ourselves, it’s God’s purpose that will always prevail.
So, when our plans don’t seem to be working, and we’re not receiving the blessings and rewards we desire most, our responsibility is to take a closer look at our plans. We must consider that they may not be lining up with the goodness God has in store for us. We must also consider the possibility that something in the treasury of our hearts is hindering our blessings, because we’re not believing in a way that fully supports our faith in God.
God wants us to come to Him for what we need and desire. 2Corinthians 3:5 tells us that He is our Sufficiency. He’s the Source of all blessings and goodness. 2Corinthians 9:8 assures us that His grace is extravagant and defies all dimensions of our thoughts and imaginations. He is able to make this grace abound towards us so that at any time, at any point in life, we will have all we need to do good in the earth.
Rewards are God’s specialty. They are His blessings, and He rewards those that are diligent in their pursuit of Him. Our Heavenly Father is the perfect and most excellent Rewarder, and He’s designed creation to corporate with our faith. This earth experience is all about growing in our relationship with God, and as we increase our believing in Him through Jesus Christ, the rewards flow. They are God’s way of showing us 1) how much He loves us, 2) when we are on the right path of pleasing Him, and 3) they tell us that it’s time to release the things that are hindering our growth so we can make room for greater blessings.
We can see the excellency of God’s rewards throughout all aspects of life. Many of us have been taught to believe that God wants us to suffer in lack and loneliness, and that He is punishing us for whatever reason and doing it by withholding His blessings. Nothing could be further from the truth. 1John 1:5(NLT) declares, “This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all.” God is good all the time, and there is no instance in which He doesn’t want the best for everyone. To receive all that He has in store for us, we must grow in Christ. This must always be our motivation—growing in the example of the One that is the blueprint for humanity.
Baby humans don’t remain babies. They grow into adult humans, and by this we learn that growing and maturing are instruments of God’s plan. Growing and maturing is God’s way of helping us transform into the people He destined us to be. He will not force us to do this, and most of us don’t do it voluntarily. We grow a little bit at a time, and our desires give us the extra push to pick up the pace. When we recognize a void in our lives, we also recognize the need to fill it. This is when we should begin to pray more, and to ask God questions about how we can move ourselves closer to the thing we desire. His answer will almost always involve spiritually growing in Christ so that we produce more of the Spirit’s fruit.
1Corinthians 13:7 tells us that God’s love never gives up, never loses faith, and it continually endures, no matter the circumstance. His love never fails, and it knows no bounds. It swells. It just keeps getting bigger and bigger, because the nature of God’s love is to expand and increase, and this is the impact it has on everything and everyone it inhabits. Because the nature of God’s love is increase, we can have confidence that this is what Heavenly Father desires for each of us. He wants us to increase according to the greatest potential that He’s set for us. And this great and full potential is contained in the image of His Son, Jesus Christ. We must rise up to the standard of God’s love, this is what our desires teach us. Therefore, we should never give up on what we desire, but strive to see what God sees and follow where He leads. When this is our aim, our faith and love towards Him will be wonderfully rewarded. ■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
“The Desires of Your Heart” written by Reverend Fran Mack, edited by Kim Times, for Sundie Morning Sistas ©2022. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!