Focus: Heart of God

Text: Ezr.7:10.

"For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the LORD, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments."

This is one of the Scriptures that appealed to me earlier in my Christian journey.
Ezra prepared his heart to do three things:

• To seek God's word
• To do God's word
• To teach God's word

See the order: knowing the word, doing the word, and teaching the word.

This is still the norm today. It hasn't changed. The order or arrangement is not reversible.

So many unprepared hearts, unwilling minds, and undedicated lives, and as a result we have massive spiritual illiteracy, acute ignorance, heavy spiritual apathy, and lack of supernatural impact in the church today.

It is written of Jotham that he "became mighty, because he prepared his ways before the LORD his God," and of Daniel, that he "purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's meat..." - 2Chron.27:6; Dan.1:8.

But see what happens when the heart is not prepared to seeking God. The Bible says that Rehoboam "did EVIL, because he prepared not his heart to seek the LORD," and concerning Judah under Jehoshaphat, we read, "Howbeit the high places were not taken away: for as yet the people had not prepared their hearts unto the God of their fathers" - 2Chron.12:14; 20:33.

Until God gets our hearts, all we do in the name of God is a sham. I pray: may the Lord have His way in your life and help you to do the needful and bask in His glory! Amen.

by Bishop Moses E. Peter