Community & Discipleship
Extreme Heart Surgery (Psalm 62:1-12)
Our hearts were made by God for God, and they will find true rest only in Him, not in appearance, approval, relationships, or possessions. Those who take God at His word can know they are His beloved.
Made by God for God, our souls find rest in Him alone (1-2)
Our lives begin with a basic truth: we were made by God for God. Romans 11:36 tells us that all things are from Him, through Him, and to Him. Psalm 62 declares that the soul finds rest in God alone, for He is our rock, our salvation, and our fortress. Augustine put it well: our hearts are restless until they rest in God. Our true home is in the hands of our Maker, and that is where we find our center.
Examine what your heart longs for and where you go to fill it (9-10)
Our longings reveal what we love and what we think we lack. Psalm 62 tells us that people are only a breath and that we should not trust in extortion or set our hearts on riches. The preacher illustrates this with a car: pouring Coke into a gas tank may fill it, but it will damage the engine. In the same way, our hearts are wired for a certain love, and they are damaged when we plug them into anything that only promises love. God alone is the source of our security, acceptance, and love.
Seek inner change before outer change by pouring out your heart to God (5-7)
David commands his own soul to find rest in God alone, showing that we sometimes must speak to our hearts rather than simply follow them. The Psalms teach us to express our emotions honestly before God. Instead of rushing to comfort food, shopping, or credit cards to satisfy our longings, we are to pour out our feelings, frustrations, and needs to Him. Looks change with the years, and gravity wins in the end. So we must seek an inner change before an outer one, and our hearts find satisfaction in God's presence.
Take God at His word, for He is strong and loving (11)
Psalm 62:11 says that God has spoken once and David has heard two things: God is strong, and God is loving. Because God is strong, He carries us through every storm and deals with our enemies. Hebrews 13:5 reminds us that He will never leave or forsake us. Because He is loving, He accepts us just as we are. When we doubt His word, we are calling Him a liar, so we must learn to believe Him and rest in His truth.
You are God's beloved, and God is crazy about you
Self-rejection is one of the greatest enemies of the spiritual life, because our core identity is being God's beloved. The apostle John called himself the disciple whom Jesus loved, and that is our sacred identity too. God's love is maximum love, not leftovers, and it is never diminished by being shared. Isaiah 43:4 declares that we are precious and honored in God's sight and that He loves us. Because God's love is so great, we can receive it and speak it to one another.
Apply to Life
- Let us bring the longings of our hearts honestly to God and pour them out before Him today.
- Let us examine what we are truly seeking to fill our hearts and turn to the right source.
- Let us seek inner change before outer change, and find our security in God first.
- Let us take God at His word and believe that we are His beloved, even when circumstances say otherwise.
- Let us speak life and truth to one another, reminding each other that God is crazy about us.
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