God is not concerned with your appearance or religious activities. He wants your heart.
1 SAMUEL #14
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I mentioned last time how we need to understand the Old Testament in the light of the New Testament. It contains the first two acts of a three-act play. It won’t make sense until you also see the end. It is all about Jesus. If we just read the Old Testament alone, we get a message that seems to contain a lot about following rules and a mean, incomprehensible God. But every once in a while we get a hint that this is a set up for something more to come – the more that was fully explained and fulfilled in Jesus. In 1 Samuel 16, we get another of these hints.
Saul struggled with insecurity. In his fears he did not turn to God for mercy and grace – instead, he tried to control and manipulate God through religion. He did not want a relationship of trust in the Almighty – he just wanted an Almighty who would do what he (Saul) wanted him to. When it came right down to it, Saul wanted God to serve him, not the reverse. Ultimately, he rejected God, and so God let him go his own way.
The prophet Samuel grieved over this turn of events, and even over Saul personally. This shows us something of the man Samuel was. He knew it was wrong for the people to want a king. He knew that Saul was insecure and not a true follower of the Lord. But Samuel hated to see him fail, hated that he had turned away from God. He knew that because of Saul’s own choices, God could not do anything more with him, but even so, he was sad for Saul.
The Lord told Samuel to go anoint the one who would be the next king of Israel. It is interesting to note that Samuel, for all his care for Saul, had no illusions about what kind of man he was. He thought Saul would have him killed if he found out he was anointing another person to be king. Even so, he obeyed and went to the home of Jesse, a descendant of Judah who lived in Bethlehem.
He had Jesse bring his sons with him to a sacrifice that they offered to the Lord. When Samuel saw Jesse’s oldest son, he was impressed.
When they came, he looked on Eliab and thought, “Surely the LORD’s anointed is before him.” But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.” (1 Sam 16:6-7, ESV)
This one of those times when the curtain is drawn back, the Old Testament shows plainly what God is after. It may be one of the most important verses in the Old Testament. God looks at the heart. The word for “heart” is a form of the Hebrew word “leb.” This is a word with a rich meaning, just as “heart” is in English. In German leben – a very similar sounding word – means life. In Hebrew this word means innermost being, intellect, the center of a person or thing.
Writer Brent Curtis points out how important the heart is:
We describe a person without compassion as “heartless,” and we urge him or her to “have a heart.” Our deepest hurts we call “heartaches.” Jilted lovers are “brokenhearted.” Courageous soldiers are “bravehearted.” The truly evil are ‘black-hearted” and saints have “hearts of gold.” If we need to speak at the most intimate level we ask for a “heart-to-heart” talk. “Lighthearted” is how we feel on vacation. And when we love someone as truly as we may, we love “with all our heart.” But when we lose our passion for life, when a deadness sets in which we cannot seem to shake, we confess, “My heart’s just not in it.”
Curtis adds, “it is in our heart that we first hear the voice of God and it is in the heart that we come to know him and live in his love…For above all else, the Christian life is a love affair of the heart.”
Brent Curtis & John Eldredge, The Sacred Romance
Clear Bible 