A Full Heart
God’s Heart
Open your heart to the verses we read together from God’s Word. Opening your heart to God’s Word is a beautiful, life-altering experience. His Word reveals the very heart and character of God to us. God’s Word is His heart. As we read it and reflect upon it, the Holy Spirit speaks to our hearts and guides us according to His perfect will for our lives.
One Christmas, the Hallmark Channel advertised for what they called a Hallmark Christmas Movie Watching Blanket. It was a soft blanket, displaying the words, “Hallmark Christmas Movies; My Only Hope.” Of course, this display was intentionally overstated, but it certainly captured something about the hearts of many women. Let’s face it, we long for happy endings. We long for dreams come true. We like things to come together in perfectly wrapped packages topped with bows - in movies and in real life.
It is, in fact, part of our nature to be on a perpetual quest for hope and fulfillment. There exists within us an incessant longing, and we tend to spend our days on earth looking to fill it.
This longing is actually a matter of the heart. We know that, in a physical sense, the heart is the center of the circulation of the blood, and hence it is regarded as the seat of physical life. It is where life comes from - the inmost part of anything. Many books of the Bible refer to the heart, and for the purpose of Biblical text, the word heart is used to describe the center and deepest part of spiritual life - the seat or place from which spiritual life flows. Spiritually speaking, the heart is the deepest part of a human being.
With that in mind, remember, Jesus wants to take up residence in our hearts. He truly wants to live in our innermost beings - in the deepest parts of who we are.
Yet, all too often we resist Him. We think to ourselves, “I’ll let Him in soon enough. I will give Him full reign once I clean up a few things.” There’s all sorts of guilt, sin and fear. There may even be areas of anger or disbelief - areas we assume He won’t enter. The truth is He is not afraid of any of that!
It is in the brokenness - right in the mess - that Jesus enters in and changes everything, as He always does. And that is where we become a part of God’s story. That is where we discover that our stories are not meant to simply be our own. Rather, they are intricately woven into God’s story of redemption - His story of redeeming all humanity - of drawing men and women unto Himself and making beautiful things out of our big messes.
Ephesians 3:17-19 says,
17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Our hearts are meant to be filled with all the fullness of God. It is unlikely that our human minds can grasp the magnitude of the concept of Almighty God filling us with all His fullness. Can we even fathom what all the fullness of God is? Yet, that’s what he wants for us.
Our hearts were in fact created to be His dwelling place, and it is for that reason that our hearts are always longing for Him. That incessant longing within us is simply a desire to be filled with Him; and nothing in this world can do that for us - not a fairytale happy ending - not dreams come true, not the perfect spouse, not the perfect job, or perfect house, or perfect kids - nothing.
The Psalmist captured the longing well:
Psalm 63:1:
O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
When Paul speaks of Christ dwelling in your heart through faith, “that you may be filled with all the fullness of God,” that fullness is like no other. It satisfies completely.
John 6:35:
Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.”
Jesus is the answer. He is the fulfillment of our dreams. He is our happy ending. When our hope is in Him, we are never disappointed.
Romans 5:5:
and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us
Share Your Heart
Consider the following discussion starters as you share your hearts with one another:
Do you think you look to the Lord to fill the incessant longing within your heart? If not, what things do you look to to fill the longing of your heart?
Are there ways we can “fill up” on God?
Is it overwhelming to think that He wants you to be filled with all the fullness of God? What do you think the fullness of God is?
The Cries of Your Heart
At Hearts Together Women, we believe that the Lord hears the cries of our hearts.
We also believe in prayer partnership because God’s Word teaches us that partnering with one another in prayer is powerful.
James 5:16 says, “Therefore…pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”
And Jesus encourages us, “When two of you get together on anything at all on earth and make a prayer of it, my Father in heaven goes into action. And when two or three of you are together because of me, you can be sure that I'll be there” (Matthew 18:19-20, The Message).
What amazing promises!
Here is how prayer partnership works at a Hearts Together Gathering:
After we share in the Word and discussion, your facilitator will ask each woman for her prayer requests. All you need to do is share your own requests - the cries of your heart - because we all have them.
We encourage you to request prayer for 1) your own needs; 2) the needs of your family and loved ones; and 3) the needs you see around you - in the workplace, the school, the neighborhood or even the nation.
After the requests are shared, your gathering facilitator will lead in a prayer for the needs that were put forth.
In the following days, we encourage you to pray for the requests of the other women in your gathering. They will do the same for you. That’s what prayer partnership is all about!
As we unite in prayer, we trust the Lord will meet with us, dwell among us and answer us in accordance with His perfect will.
Your Heart to His
Maybe you felt the Holy Spirit stirring something in your heart during this gathering. It doesn’t have to end here. Take it home. In the followings days, continue to pursue Him. Spend some time alone and quiet, away from the noise of life - just you and Jesus.
Tell Him the cries of your heart. He is listening; He cares, and He does answer. Praying is kind of like having a conversation with your best friend. He created you, so He already knows everything about you. He just wants to be with you.
After you pray, reread the Scriptures and thoughts under God’s Heart. Reflect upon the verses and how they speak to you and your life.
Here are some things you might contemplate and pray about:
Reflect upon the perpetual longings of your heart. Consider the places you go to find hope and fulfillment. Ask Him to reveal to you the hope you have in Him. Look to Him to fill you with all His fullness.
This is just between you and Jesus - your heart to His. Make space in your busy days to spend some time with Him.
