1 Samuel 16:7

The Lord looks at the heart.

God has spoken to Samuel and has told him that he will be anointing the next king of Israel, one who will take Saul's place. Samuel goes to Bethlehem to meet Jesse and his sons, one of whom the Lord tells him will be the next king of Israel. The first son, Eliab, stands before Samuel, and he is a physical specimen, much like Saul. Samuel says to himself that Eliab has got to be the anointed one, because of his appearance. At that point, God tells Samuel not to look at Eliab's appearance or height, because those aren't important. He tells Samuel that He does not see as man sees, because while men look at outward appearance, "the Lord looks at the heart." Later in the passage, small young David is brought before Samuel and is anointed as the next king of Israel.

Thoughts for the day...
These words should scare many of us. How much time out of our day do we spend primping, dressing, doing everything to look good--fifteen minutes? A half hour? An hour or more? My point is, we spend a lot of time making the outside look good. I don't believe there's anything at all wrong with wanting to improve our appearance. But here's the scary part: are we spending at least the same amount of time making our hearts look good? Are we spending at least the same amount of time improving the appearance of our hearts to God? Because that, according to His word, is what is important!

We see God's words are true when He comes to earth in Jesus. Jesus spends much of His time in scripture bashing the Pharisees. The Pharisees put on a good show--they said all the right religious words, they did all the right religious moves, they made sure that people heard them and knew that they were doing right by God. But Jesus slammed them regularly, saying, essentially, that the Pharisees were not, in fact, right by God because while they looked like they were doing everything right, their hearts were unclean (Matthew 32:27).

Why did I say these words are scary? Um...have you honestly looked at your heart lately? Is it something you'd be proud to let people see? We all have skeletons in our closets, sometimes hidden very well from friends and family. But they're not hidden from God. God looks through everything we try to do to please Him, and He sees straight through to our hearts. I need to work on taking deliberate steps to improve the attitude of my heart.

My Prayer
Heavenly Father, when You look into my heart, you see who I really am. You see who I really want to be in You. When I honestly look into my own heart, I don't always like what I see. Father, help me to improve the attitude of my heart, that I wouldn't be embarrassed by what I know You see when You look upon it. Help me to walk in Your word, to grow closer to You, Father, so that when others get close to me and see into my heart, all they see is You.