Read 1 Chronicles 28 and Micah 5.
This devotional is about 1 Chronicles 28:9: “And you, my son Solomon, acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches every heart and understands every desire and every thought.”
Solomon left behind a kingdom that was incredibly wealthy, a city with impressive architecture, a government that was well-organized and well-run, and a library of wisdom literature that he personally authored. These are impressive accomplishments for anyone. If you consider the time in which Solomon lived, they are even more impressive.
That’s how Solomon’s public life ended but this chapter tells us how his public life began. David, his father, had already publicly enthroned Solomon as his successor; in this chapter, David publicly charged Solomon to build the Lord a temple (vv. 2-6).
But David wasn’t content to see that Solomon constructed a great edifice; he wanted his son also to walk with God. Embedded in the charge of this chapter was a charge from David to Solomon to walk with God (vv. 8-9). Part of that charge to walk with God was to do so “with a willing mind” (v. 9b). The word translated “mind” here is a word that describes someone’s “spirit,” his inner person. David’s command to Solomon, then, is not just to do the Lord’s work but to put his heart and soul into it.
And God would know whether or not Solomon directed the building of the temple this way because, as verse 9c says, “…the Lord searches every heart and understands every desire and every thought.” This was a huge project; would it be done as an act of love for God or just to get it done as quickly as possible so that Solomon could move on to other things? God knows the difference even if nobody else can tell.
Think about your ministry for God–greeting people on Sunday morning, making coffee or serving donuts, preparing your AWANA challenge for Wednesday night’s counsel time, practicing your instrument for worship team, advancing the slides during the worship service, editing the video livestream, or any number of other ministries that you do for the Lord. Are you doing them with a “willing mind/spirit” or just half-heartedly doing what you have to because you were asked or volunteered out of guilt?
God knows when our ministry is wholehearted, halfhearted, or nohearted,. He will reward us accordingly in the last day. In my experience, the key to doing wholehearted ministry is to remember that you’re doing it for God not for recognition or because “somebody’s got to!” Let’s remind ourselves what God has done for us and that it is a privilege to serve him by serving his people. That will give us a willing mind as we going about serving Christ.