What exactly does "a man after God's own heart" mean? ?

Question

1 Sam 13:14

What does that mean?

A) Does it mean that king david was a man whose desires and wishes were close to God's own? (David was similar to God's heart)

B) Or does it mean God just liked the heart of David, for example because he was humble and not bigheaded and he relied on God?

Is that a language issue or a theology issue?

Answer 1

I found a verse in Acts 13:22 it says:

After removing Saul he made David there King. He testified concerning him: I have found David son of Jesse a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.



Luke's take on this verse is he obeyed God to the point of what I have heard called being a disciple.Its one thing to believe in God and another to do without question his will.

Answer 2

I think it is a literal reference, that David literally "pursued the heart of God, sought to know God, sought to imitate him perfectly".  I think he wasted no effort in trying to know God.  

Consider when he danced before God "with all his might" on varying occasions.  Or when he was driven from his home in Jerusalem by a rebellious Son, even then he said "maybe God is done with me?"  He knew God well enough to know that God can do as he pleases, I think that kind of humility before God was important.  I think also that David constantly sung to the Lord "a new song" set him apart from others.  He constantly had musicians and priests preforming during his reign by requiring that the praise toward God NEVER stopped.  I think he was just the kind of fellow who went all out to please God, and remembered all the while HE worked for God, not the other way around.  

Answer 3

I think it just means that God is able to see beyond what humans see and into the heart of a person.  

Answer 4

David sought righteousness and holiness, which are God's qualities. He wanted to be like God's nature.

Answer 5

I think it means to love as Jesus loved. which is pure and unconditional

Answer 6

useless question

Answer 7

It means that David possessed qualities that God loved about him.

Answer 8

A.

When we truly love GOD His desires become our desires. HE desires that none are lost, but all are saved.

John 3:16 For GOD so loved the world that HE gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him shalt not parish, but have everlasting life.

Answer 9

The Lord has sought for Himself a man after His own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be commander over His people: Though God has rejected Saul, He has not rejected Israel. Because God loves Israel, he will raise up a king, a man after His own heart.

i. Saul was a man after Israel’s heart. He was all about image and prestige and the things men look at. But God will now give Israel a man after His own heart, and raise that man up to be king.

ii. It would be easy to say that the kingdom was taken from Saul because of his sin. And on one level, that was certainly the case. But it was more than that. After all, didn’t David sin also? Yet God never took the kingdom from David and his descendants. Because the issue was bigger than an incident of sin, the issue was being a man after God’s own heart.

iii. “As for David, though he was not without his failings, - and those foul ones too, some of them, - yet for the main, his heart was upright, not rotten, as Saul’s was.” (Trapp)

f. What then does it mean to be a man after His own heart? We can discover this by looking at the man who was not a man after His own heart and comparing him to the man who was a man after His own heart.

i. A man after God’s heart honors the Lord. Saul was more concerned with his will than God’s will. David was a man after God’s heart in the way that he knew God’s will was most important. Even when David didn’t do God’s will, he still knew God’s will was more important than his own was. All sin is a disregard of God, but David sinned more out of weakness and Saul more out of a disregard for God.

ii. A man after God’s heart enthrones God as king. For Saul, Saul was king. For David, the Lord God was king. Both David and Saul would have thought sacrifice important before the battle. But David thought it was important because it pleased and honored God. Saul thought it was important because it might help him win a battle. For Saul, God would help him achieve his goals. For David, God Himself was the goal.

iii. A man after God’s heart has a soft, repentant heart. When Saul was confronted with his sin, he offered excuses. When David was confronted with his sin, he simply said I have sinned against the Lord (2 Samuel 12:13).

iv. A man after God’s heart loves other people. Saul became increasingly bitter against people and lived more and more unto himself. David was a man after God’s own heart in the way that he loved people. When David was down and out, he still loved and served those who were even more down and out than himself (1 Samuel 22:1-2).

g. The Lord has sought for Himself a man after His own heart: God was looking for this kind of man, and God found this man in an unlikely place. In fact, at this time, he wasn’t a man at all! God is still looking for men and women after His own heart.

i. When we think of a man after His own heart, many of us think that this is a title reserved for a few “super-spiritual” folks. It isn’t for us. We want these kinds of people around us, but we never think we can be one of them. We aren’t spiritual enough. But look at David: a warrior who killed hundreds of men with his own hands, a fugitive, a traitor, a man who had seasons of backsliding, an adulterer, a murderer. Yet he could be called a man after His own heart. If David can have our sins, then we can have his heart. We can love God and pursue Him with the kind of focus and heart David had.

Answer 10

A man that knew God, believed God, didn't doubt God and let God work mightily through him.  David didn't have a problem doing exactly what God wanted done.