Man After YHWH's Own Heart

 “And having removed him, He raised up for them Dawiḏ as sovereign, to whom also He gave witness and said, ‘I have found Dawiḏ the son of Yishai, a man after My own heart, who shall do all My desires.’” (Act 13:22)

To understand the character of a person, one can look at their heart. When we are “born from the beginning” into the Spirit, We are changed into the image of YHWH and do His hearts desire. How do we know what is the hearts desire of YHWH? The Scriptures have given us a very good example of a man who is claimed to be the only person in the entire Scriptures to be called “a man after YHWH’s own Heart.” His name is King Dawid

We can learn a lot from the life and writings of Dawid. From a very young age, Dawid was courageous, obedient and faithful. He defended his flock from lions and bears when he was still a shepherd boy. When he was still too young and small to join the army, he faced and killed Goliath, who made all the other Israelites tremble with fear, because Dawid was obedient to YHWH. Dawid later became King of Israel after Saul became disobedient to YHWH, and even tried to kill Dawid out of jealousy.

Dawid was protected and blessed by YHWH because of his obedience to and love for YHWH. Although Dawid also had many faults, he repented from his sins and turned back to YHWH every time. Dawid knew very well what the will of YHWH is. He wrote many Psalms that illustrate his love towards the Will of YHWH. Probably the most beautiful one is Psalm 119.

In this Psalm the word Torah, and nine other words are used which run parallel with, or are synonymous of Torah (Instruction), thus a total of 10 parallel words. All 176 verses of Psalm 119 contain one of these 10 Parallel words, except verse 122!

Another wonderful fact concering Psalm 119, it consists of 176 verses. 176 divided by 8 gives us 22, which is the amount of letters in the Hebrew alphabete (aleph-beth). now the interesting part... the first 8 verses each begin with the letter 'aleph', the next 8 verses each begin with the letter "beyt", the next 8 verses after that each begin with the letter 'gimel' etc etc He does this through out the entire chapter untill all the Hebrew letters are used... it is one beautiful poem written to the Almighty.

Clearly Dawid is revealing the true Will of YHWH here. By meditating on and rejoicing in Torah everyday and guarding the Commands of YHWH. The Psalm before this one, Psalm 118, is a Psalm about Y’hoshua Mashiyach. Dawid clearly understood the desire of YHWH and the role of His Mashiyach. The Christian Church claims that the Good News only came into existence during the life of the Mashiyach Y’hoshua. The evidence, however, tells us something else. The Good News was very evident throughout the Torah and the prophets. Dawid proves this by writing Psalm 118! With all this information, Dawid was in the same boat as we are in today. Dawid, with all the information that he had about the Mashiyach, still chose to guard the Torah of YHWH and to keep His Commands, not because it was the tradition of Israel, but because of his love for YHWH and through his Faith.

“And by this we know that we love the children of Elohim, when we love Elohim and follow His Commandments. For this is the love of Elohim, that we keep his Commandments: and His Commandments are not burdensome. Because, whoever is born of Elohim overcomes the world: and this is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith” (1 John 5:2-4).

Dawid knew and understood what John wrote in the above verse even though Dawid was not around when John wrote it. This is because they both had the same spirit, and understanding of the true Will of YHWH, because they both studied and knew the Torah! “Therefore you shall love YHWH your Elohim and keep His charge and His Statutes and His Judgements and His Commandments, ALWAYS” (Deut 11:1). All the other disciples and apostles also had this knowledge and taught it to all the nations.

Now, has the Will of YHWH changed since Y’hoshua’s death on the stake? NO! this is evident when Y’hoshua says, “Therefore they said to Him, “Where is Your Father?”  יהושע (Y'hoshua) answered, “You know (Y'hoshua) neither Me nor My Father. If you knew Me, you would have known My Father also.” (John 8:19). So we clearly see that the Son has the same character as his Father. So if we know the Son, then we know the Father. “Y’hoshua Mashiyach is the same yesterday, and today, and forever” (Heb 13:8). So we can certainly see that the Will of YHWH is the same now as what it was before Y’hoshua died on the stake.

To understand the Character and Will of YHWH and His Son Y’hoshua, we can learn a great lesson from King Dawid who truly understood the Will of YHWH, by just reading the 119^th Psalm we see that the Will of YHWH is for us to guard and keep His Torah day and night! But not just keep Torah but to love YHWH’s instruction! “The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power and signs and wonders of falsehood, and with all deceit of unrighteousness in those perishing, because they did not receive the love of the truth, in order for them to be saved. And for this reason Elohim sends them a working of delusion, for them to believe the falsehood, in order that all should be judged who did not believe the truth, but have delighted in the unrighteousness” (2 Thes 2:9-12)