Pray the Word with David Platt is a resource from Radical.net.

1 Samuel chapter 16, verse 7.

But the Lord said to Samuel, do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature

because I have rejected him.

For the Lord sees, not as man sees.

Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord

looks on the heart. Oh, this is such a good verse as God is talking about David, who

scripture will later say is a man after his own heart and he didn't have the appearance and a variety of

other things that his brothers had but he did have the heart that 1st samuel chapter 16 verse 7 says is

what god focuses on and there's so much we could talk about here, so many different directions we could go.

I want to take it in two different directions as we pray.

One, I want to remind you and me that what is most important before God is the state of our hearts, not of our looks or our appearance in a variety of

different ways. We are all so tempted to focus on what we look like, how we appear before

others. And I'm not even just saying so physically our appearance, although we do spend a good amount of

time in mirrors looking at our appearances and evaluating our appearances, but also we just spend

so much time, even unconsciously, thinking about what to others think about me, what to others

see in me. And I just want to encourage you, focus instead on your heart before

God. This is most important. Put your focus there, think about that all the time. God, help me to

tend to my heart that it might be pleasing to you, form my heart, transform my heart at the

core of who I am.

And my heart be filled with love for you and love for others and cultivate that kind of heart.

And then second, look at others this way.

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