What does it mean exactly to look on the heart? I think we often assume this is about two things—our intentions and how we will be judged. Often the errors we make in life aren’t what we intended to happen, and we then assume that the Lord will excuse us because we weren’t trying to do something wrong.

While at one point I would have thought this was the case, I’m less sure now. What about if we should have paid more attention to others when we acted? Are we excused if we didn’t intend to hurt anyone, but also didn’t take proper precautions? Can you claim that you didn’t mean to hit the pedestrian while driving your car if you weren’t looking to see if anyone was in the crosswalk?

I suspect ‘looking on the heart’ is about more than mere intention. It’s about whether our beings are focused on righteousness. It’s about whether our intentions are holistic enough—if they include everything that we should be considering. This requires a more comprehensive way of looking at our intentions—something that includes, among many things, obedience to God’s laws, to  serving others, and that acknowledges Christ’s role in our lives. It goes well beyond mere intention.

 

Jesus Christ is my King.

Part of having the kind of heart the Lord is looking for involves actually surrendering our intentions to Him. There is a kind of impossibility to the idea that we should have intentions that take into account everything. It seem beyond what a human can do. So the answer is to surrender our intentions to God so that we can gain a broader perspective and learn from Him.

The following poem, written by an early Irish convert, Richard Smyth, asks us to consider what we are looking for in life. Are we seeking the this kind of broader intention? Are we seeking God?

 

Are you seeking, here below,

The poor miser’s cankering store?

Does your heart that idol know,

Foolish man calls precious ore?

Wealth takes wings and flies away;

‘Tis but folly’s joyless dower:

It will shed no cheering ray

‘Mid the gloom of death’s dark hour.

 

Would you carve yourself a name,

“Mid the wreck of human life,

On the scroll of earthly fame,

With the reeking sword of strife?

Better far to conquer sin-

The great enemy of man,

And immortal glory win,

By the Gospel’s saving plan.

 

Are you seeking to unbend

Chains that bow your country down?

Are your interests all entwined’

Round some despot’s fallen crown?

Patriotic virtue gains

But the dross of earthly things:

Seek to break sin’s galling chains,

And proclaim the King of kings.

 

Are you seeking to improve

The sad state of man below?

Do you forward every move

Made to check the reign of woe?

Patch the folly of the world,

O ye wise men, if ye can:

But the flag of Christ unfurled

Is the only hope of man.

 

Are you seeking peace on earth,

And the joys that never fade?

Do you long for heavenly birth?

Have you Jesu’s laws obeyed?

Oh, to save a world from sin,

Gospel truth is now revealed!

There is joy and peace therein;

‘Tis the fount of grace unsealed.

 

Seek the holy kingdom first;

Then naught else will God deny:

Christ will every fetter burst;

You’ll have fadeless wealth on high,

And your fame shall ne’er decay;

Your philanthropy shall rest:

Christ shall yet his sceptre sway

O’er a world divinely blest.

1861

 

God calls people by prophecy to serve in His kingdom.

If we surrender our intentions to God, we then must serve in His kingdom where and when he asks us to. In the process, our intentions are expanded and our abilities are increased—truly a blessing in our lives today.

English convert and poet John Jaques addresses our gratitude for this kind of blessing in the following hymn.

 

We thank thee, God, our Father,

That we thy children are;

We thank thee thou hast own’d us

And gather’d us from far-

From many a distant nation,

From many a varied clime,

To be thy chosen vessels

In this peculiar time.

 

We thank thee thou has called us

To manifest thy might,

To be to every people

A certain beacon light,-

The nucleus of thy kingdom-

The little mountain stone

By which the wicked nations

Will shortly be o’erthrown.

 

We thank thee for the knowledge

Which thou to us hast given,

And for the keys and powers

To translate earth to heaven.

We thank thee for the mountains

From earth’s deep bosom hurled:

They serve as massive curtains

Between us and the world.

 

We thank thee for the deserts,

And for the kanyon bold-

For all our rocky bulwarks,

And for the piercing cold,?

And that thou dost surround us

With heavy mantling snows;

For these are our defences

Against our Christian foes.

 

We thank thee for these valleys-

The chambers of the Lord,

The places of sure refuge

For those who love thy word,—

The hiding place for Israel,

As flocks see here they ay,

That thy fierce indignation

May safely pass them by.

 

We thank thee thou hast planted

The tree of liberty

Where it will grow, and flourish,

And bloom eternally;

And that the word is publish’d

Far o’er the land and sea,-

That we are independent-

That Zion now is free!

 

Help us, we do desire thee,

Our freedom to maintain,

That we may ne’er be subject

To wicked men again:

Help us, for we’ve declared it,

We will be free or die!

And we’ll bless thee, our Father,

And thy name we’ll magnify.

1858

 

“To obey is better than sacrifice.”

 

In this case “sacrifice” refers to the sacrifices the Israelites made to get forgiveness from sin, among other reasons. So the phrase could also be translated to say “To obey is better than to ask for forgiveness”—and put that way it seems pretty obvious.

I often hear discomfort with the idea of obedience, especially if it is ‘blind’ obedience—i.e., obeying without looking or thinking about what we are doing. But isn’t the kind of surrender we are talking about the same thing as being obedient? And isn’t it essentially blind? We use faith because we can’t see the outcome of what we are surrendering to.

In this poem Eliza R. Snow tries to encourage this same kind of obedience.

 

We have no amputations in our Creed

All Truth—all truths of every kind, we plead—

All that pertains to life—whatever suits

Each varied circumstance of men and brutes.

All laws of Science—Art of ev’ry kind—

All that pertains to matter and to mind,

To all that has been, is, or will be here,

To what exists in God’s eternal sphere.

To gather truth, is our industrious aim—

To learn ourselves—why here—from whence we came—

To know what God intended us to be,

And learn, from Him, our future destiny.

Such is our faith-faith without works is dead

We’re living limbs of Christ our living head

We’ve prophets and apostles in these days

As anciently: To God be all the praise.

Lady, to all who God and truth are seeking

In truth we testify that God is speaking.

Believe (and] obey: Obedience more implies

Than altars heap’d with burning sacrifice

Thro’ disobedience man has gone astray;

Obedience is the path to Endless Day.

1866

 

“The Lord looketh on the heart.”

The phrase “looking on the heart” also suggests that the Lord will look beyond mere appearances, and that His purposes go beyond what the World sees as important. In this sense, our intentions can easily be a reflection of what the World expects instead of what the Lord is looking for.

Ruby Lamont (pen name of Marie Margarete Miller Johnson) here looks at serving God with our talents and being despised by the World. I think its particularly notable that in the end there isn’t the final resolution of fame and recognition from anyone on this earth—instead the singer’s only recognition comes “On the Savior’s breast.”

 

Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works, and glorify your father which is in heaven.—Matthew v, 16.

 

God gave to the world a singer,

A warbler of strange, sweet songs,

And bade her in brightness linger

Where thickest were found earth’s throngs.

 

And deep in her heart the vision

Of glorious brightness lay,

And she sang sweet strains elysian

As she walked the lighted way.

 

For her soul was bathed in brightness,

At the fount of light she drank,

But the sheen of her spirit’s whiteness

From the touch of earth ne’er shrank.

 

A song of strength to the drooping,

A song of joy to the sad—

God’s angels ne’er deemed her stooping,

That she made earth’s children glad.

 

And ever she sang of beauty,

And justice and love and truth,

And the thorniest path of duty

Grew bright to her trusting youth.

 

But the world said in cold scorning

Sweet songs have been sung before,

We’ve no need of new adorning

With the poems of thy lore.

 

Give us grander, sweeter music,

Give us strains yet more divine,

Sing new songs of joy intrinsic,

Or let cease thy light to shine.

 

But with holy trust the singer

From her child-like soul looked up,

And remembered that Christ, the bringer

Of joy, drank scorn’s black cup.

 

And in orisons pure and tender,

Her thankful heart swelled high,

For the light her soul might render

In a world where all must die.

 

And though humble, meek and lowly

Were the songs of praise she sang,

Pure angels called them holy,

In heaven their sweet tones rang.

 

For in love she obeyed the master

Who commanded the light to shine,

And in faith toiled on the faster,

Believing the call divine.

 

And no one knew but the angels

Of the beauty still unexpressed

The love, the light, the gladness

That lingered within her breast.

 

And so like a babe in sweetness

On the Savior’s breast she lay,

For her joy was in life’s completeness

Truly found in God’s own way.

1886