With One Heart

"If you look for Me wholeheartedly you will find Me....I have loved you, My people, with an everlasting love.  With unfailing love I have drawn you to Myself."  (Jeremiah 20:13; 31:3)

That's the heart of God.

He wants to love us and have us love Him--as a PEOPLE.  His love IS unique and individual--I am created to have a personal and intimate relationship with Christ.

However, I am noticing recently in Scripture that God loves us corporately as well.  We are His PEOPLE.

Through Jeremiah He said, "I will give them one heart and one purpose: to worship me forever, for their own good and the good of their descendants." (Jeremiah 32:39)

Just three chapters earlier is the famous "I know the plans I have for you..." verse that we all love to quote to assure ourselves that God will bless us and prosper us.  That promise,  however, is for his PEOPLE, not just individuals.  And what is that hope? What is that future?

"to worship me forever..."

It is a blessing; it is our prosperity because it is what we were created to do--together.

God created us to WORSHIP Him together, with one heart--which does not mean just an individual heart, but many hearts sharing one love for ONE God.

He says He created us this way, because it is good for us and our descendants.

Good for US, not Him--He enjoys our worship, but He doesn't need it.

If God is the One receiving all the worship, how can that be good for us?

I know this only because He has allowed me to experience it.  It is good for us because worship is simply a focus on God and who He is.  The beauty of focusing on God is that it pulls our focus off of ourselves.

This is good, because He is the solution to all our troubles and the object of all our longings.

Worship opens our eyes to who He is and what He can do through us.  It reveals to us His heart and His character...we know Him through worship.

And to know Him is to love Him.

Worship is good on an individual level, and God does desire me to worship intimately and in private. Even if no one around me joins in, I was created to worship God, to seek Him and to find Him.

Oh, but can you see the beauty and the blessing that comes when an entire sanctuary--or living room, or stadium, or meadow, or auditorium, or prison ward--full of people adore who Him for who He is, with all those hearts reaching out to Him as ONE?

Divisions and conflict would fall away because it is not about us, but about Him.

If we seek Him with our whole corporate heart, we-- as a people-- will find Him.  Imagine what He could do through us then.