Proverbs 23:26; Jeremiah 29:13; 1 Chronicles 22:19; Psalm 119:58
My son, give me thine heart.
And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.
Now set your heart and your soul to seek the Lord your God.
I intreated thy favour with my whole heart: be merciful unto me according to thy word.
THOMAS MANTON (1620-1677): Whoever would seek God aright, they must seek Him with their whole heart. What doth this imply?
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): The whole heart is taken for an upright or sincere heart, which is opposed to a double heart.
THOMAS MANTON: It implies sincerity and integrity; for it is not to be taken in the legal sense with respect to absolute perfection, but in opposition to deceit. “Judah has not turned to me with her whole heart, but feignedly, saith the Lord,” Jeremiah 3:10.
JOHN ANGELL JAMES (1785-1869): If you do not, like David, seek the favour of God with your whole heart, you will never have it. You may more rationally think to reach the top of the highest mountain on earth without labour, than to imagine you can reach heaven without effort. If you suppose a few wishes or a little exertion will do, you are mistaken; and the sooner you are undeceived the better.
D. L. MOODY (1837-1899): Trust Him with your whole heart, for “with the heart man believeth unto righteousness,” Romans 10:10…I am tired and sick of half-heartedness. I don’t like a half-hearted man. I don’t care for anyone to love me half-heartedly. And the Lord won’t have it. If we are going to seek for Him and find Him, we must do it with all our hearts.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): A half heart is no heart at all…You cannot give Christ a piece of a heart, for a heart that is halved is killed. A heart that has even a little bit taken off is a dead heart.
THOMAS MANTON: He that gives but part to God doth indeed give nothing. The Devil keeps an interest as long as one lust remains unmortified, and one corner of the soul is kept for him. As Pharaoh stood haggling with Moses, Exodus 7, he would have some pawn of their return: either leave your children behind; no, no, they must go and see the sacrifices, and be trained up in the way of the Lord; or he would have their flocks and herds left behind; he knew that would draw their hearts back again. So Satan must have either this lust or that; he knows by keeping part all will fall to his share in the end. A bird that is tied in a string seems to have more liberty than a bird in a cage; it flutters up and down though it be held fast: so many seem to flutter up and down and do many things, as Herod, Mark 6:20; but his Herodias drew him back again into the fowler’s net.
C. H. SPURGEON: The devil does not mind having half your heart. He is quite satisfied with that because he is like the woman to whom the child did not belong—he does not mind if it is cut in halves. The true mother of the child said, “Oh, spare the child! Do not divide it!” And so Christ, who is the true Lover of hearts, will not have the heart divided.
THOMAS BROOKS (1608-1680): He loathes a divided heart: Psalm 51:17; James 1:8. God neither loves halting nor halving; He will be served truly and totally. The royal law is, “Thou shalt love and serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul.” Among the heathens, when the beasts were cut up for sacrifice, the first thing the priest looked upon was the heart, and if the heart was naught, the sacrifice was rejected. Verily, God rejects all those sacrifices wherein the heart is not.
C. H. SPURGEON: Some seekers are divided as to the object of their trust. They trust in Jesus Christ, but they also trust a little in themselves. They believe His blood has a great deal to do with it, but they think their prayers have something, too, and so they stand with one foot on the land and the other on the sea and, therefore, they fall! They are relying upon self in part and upon Christ in part, and so they will assuredly come to destruction, for Christ will never be a part Saviour! It must be all or nothing! He never entered into partnership with sinful worms to help save them—He is the sole Foundation—and other foundation can no man lay. Alas, upon this matter, how many have their hearts divided! They are trusting to their Baptism, or to their Confirmation, or to their “sacraments”—all false foundations—and yet they are trying to trust in Christ at the same time! Their heart is divided and now they are held guilty…To believe is to trust with your whole heart—and whoever trusts in the Lord Jesus Christ with his whole heart has the promise of eternal life.
THOMAS GOODWIN (1600-1679): Justifying faith is seated in the whole heart, as Philip said in Acts 8:37— “If thou believest with all thine heart,” thou shalt be saved.
D. L. MOODY: “Ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.” Those who seek for Him with all their hearts, find Christ. Did you ever hear of anyone calling upon Christ with the whole heart, that Christ didn’t answer?
ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): “They sought Him with their whole desire, and He was found of them; and the Lord gave them rest round about,” 2 Chronicles 15:15. The words express in simplest form what should be the chief desire of our hearts and occupation of our lives, and what will then be our peaceful experience.
CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): Give yourselves wholly to Him; and so shall that promise be fulfilled to you; “I will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty,” 2 Corinthians 6:18.
ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): His mercy shall be shown to all those who have fled for refuge to the hope that is set before them in the Gospel…Feeling that he deserved nothing but wrath, that he had no right to any good, he cries for mercy in the way that God had promised to convey it: “Be merciful unto me!” And to this he is encouraged only by the promise of God; and therefore prays, “Be merciful unto me—according to thy Word.”
JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): This is the sum of his petition, and must be the main of ours.
C. H. SPURGEON: You will have the Saviour when your whole heart and soul are after Him…The heart is united in itself when it is united to the Lord! Even as the Lord has said by the mouth of the Prophet, “I will give them an heart to know Me, that I am the Lord; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God: for they shall return unto Me with their whole heart,” Jeremiah 24:7…Again, remember that you who seek the Lord with a divided heart condemn yourselves. When you stand before the Judgment Seat you won’t be able to say, as some will, “Lord, we did not know of this salvation.”
