Last week I spent 10 days with a team of 13 students in Lahinch, Country Clare, Ireland. The Lord was doing a work in my life during this outreach. I hope to share with you what He shared with me and is reminding me in a kind of needed broken record way.

“What's the thrill? I'd rather have my soul fulfilled” - black eyed peas

What is the thrill of your heart? This was the question asked by Pastor Matt Kottman during a class today with regards to worship. He spoke about the importance of not having things that we worship and put higher above God. I had never really thought about this I knew I had some idols that I had put before God, for some reason though I had not really thought about the fact that I was elevating above God. It struck me that I had been looking to other things for soul fulfilment, I had been looking to the control of the world around me and was worshipping it, I was looking to others for the making me feel fulfilled and to put a thrill in my heart. Even though I knew that the only true satisfaction I would ever receive was from God and from his outpouring of love on me. He talked about the Puritan Thomas Chalmers and his talk about the Expulsive power of a new affection. In this sermon Chalmers said something that I knew but something I also needed to be reminded of:

“The heart's desire for an ultimate object may be conquered, but its desire to have SOME object is unconquerable. The only way to dispossess the heart of an old affection is through the expulsive power of a new one. It is therefore only when admitted into the number of God's children through faith in Jesus Christ that the spirit of adoption is poured out on us -- it is then that the heart, brought under the mastery of one great, predominate, and supreme affection is delivered from the tyranny of all its former desires and the only way that deliverance is possible.”

He talks about the fact that our heart is always desiring some object of affection and if we have Christ this should be our only affection and the only thing that causes our heart to skip a beat and causes our soul to be fulfilled. The Black eyed Peas were saying what most people in the world are saying. They have these idols that they try to get satisfaction from, but as the psalmist wrote:

They have mouths, but do not speak;

eyes, but do not see.

They have ears, but do not hear;

noses, but do not smell.

They have hands, but do not feel;

feet, but do not walk;

and they do not make a sound in their throat.

Those who make them become like them;

so do all who trust in them. (Psalm 115:3-8)

People of the world, scrap that, all of us make idols without even being aware we are doing it. We find people, things, attractions in life that make us feel that thrill. Unfortunately that thrill is only for a short period and there is no fulfillment from these idols as they don’t give anything back, they don’t offer anything. This is what is so amazing about the Love of God, it is always pouring into us and wanting us to be fulfilled. God is so amazing when we focus on Him and bring our worship to him we get to experience the abundance of his love and mercy and not only will we be fulfilled we will also have peace. I will end with this quote from John Calvin who was writing on the passage in John 4 when Jesus is talking to the Samaritan woman by the well. He talks about what Jesus is telling the woman; that the well she is coming to is broken and does not satisfy yet Jesus has the well that will overflow and will never make us thirst. I now hand it over to John:

Christ’s riches are intended to help our failure, support our poverty, and satisfy our hunger and thirst. We do not need to fear that we will lack anything if only we draw from the fullness of Christ, which is in every way so perfect that we will find it to be an inexhaustible fountain indeed. John Calvin, John

So this weekend ask God to look into your heart and search out those idols that we are raising up above God and ask him to take it away from you so that your focus will be on Him and you won’t have to ask what the thrill of your heart is, because you will know and will want to worship God for all that he is doing in you and through you to glorify Him.