Devotional Song: … GO TO THIS LINK … Please take the time to take in a YouTube video with images and lyrics from the group Avalon singing … Everything To Me … poignantly singing of the only way we can fill the hole planted in our hearts which only the love of God can fill.
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Highlight Verse[s]: Ecclesiastes 3:11 [NLT] … 11 Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.
… Solomon discovered that God has planted a void in the heart of everyone that only He will be able to fill with His love.
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Highlight Passage [context]: Ecclesiastes 3:9-11 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …
… King Solomon relates what God revealed to him over years trying to fill the King’s heart with the world’s pleasures and power, which he found to be nothing but vanity.
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Reference Passage [NLT] : … Psalm 4:3 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK … 3 You can be sure of this: The Lord set apart the godly for Himself. The Lord will answer when I call to Him.
… King David knew that only God could satisfy the longings of His heart.
Reference Passage [NLT] : … Proverbs 3:5-6 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK … 5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. 6 Seek His will in all you do, and He will show you which path to take.
… God planted the desire in all of us to give ALL our hearts to/for Him.
My Devotional Journal: Today's ODB author, David H Roper, used a story about the inbred drive his dog had, illustrating how God has placed in all of us an inbred desire to seek after a deep and abiding relationship with our Lord. The ODB author wrote: We had a West Highland Terrier for a number of years. “Westies” are tough little dogs, bred to tunnel into badger holes and engage the “enemy” in its lair. Our Westie was many generations removed from her origins, but she still retained that instinct, put into her through years of breeding. On one occasion she became obsessed by some “critter” under a rock in our backyard. Nothing could dissuade her. She dug and dug until she tunneled several feet under the rock.
Now consider this question: Why do we as humans pursue, pursue, pursue? Why must we climb unclimbed mountains, ski near-vertical slopes? Run the most difficult and dangerous rapids, challenge the forces of nature? Part of it is a desire for adventure and enjoyment, but it’s much more. It’s an instinct for God that has been implanted in us. We cannot not want to find God.
I call it ”the love hole.”
God has put it in the hearts for all of us; and only the pursuit of and the filling of His love can fill that hole in our hearts. C.S. Lewis put it like this: “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” But because of the fall of mankind and our inherited sinfulness, we sinful creatures are driven to try to fill God’s love hole with so many false and empty pursuits.
For many years, I, for one, tried to fill my love hole with various illicit lust-driven pursuits or with gluttonous eating habits. Others try to fill the emptiness in their hearts with chemical substances, gambling, or the pursuit of power or pleasure. But as Kings David and Solomon discovered (see Scriptures above), only our God can satisfy the longings of our souls and fill up that hole in our hearts with His love.
I pray that all here have discovered that pursing a deep and abiding love relationship with our Lord is the only way to fill up that love-hole in our hearts.
My Prayer Today: Abba Father, … King Jesus, … Precious Spirit … Oh, I come here to fill up my love hole with my pursuit of Your love daily. And You do so fill me with Yourself to overflowing. … Amen
Blogger Note: Everyday during this year, my daily devotional blogs are influenced by the reading and study of the online devotional blog entitled Our Daily Bread, distributed online via email by RBC Ministries. If you GO TO THIS LINK on the date of my blog, you can read/study the ODB blogs; or you can subscribe to the blog via email at that site.
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