“Teach me Your way, Lord, that I may rely on your faithfulness; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear Your name.” Psalm 86:11
I have always had a wandering mind. As a kid, I would sit in class and daydream about what I was going to do over the weekend. “Should I grab my girlfriends and go shopping, or go out to dinner and a movie?”
A wandering mind is not really a good thing, but a heart that wanders is not good at all.
“I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people and I will be their God.” Ezekiel 11:19:21
When we accept Jesus into our hearts, we are a new creation. Old things pass away and behold, all things are made new. God says in His Word that He is a jealous God. He longs for our attention as much as we long for His. Imagine if you had a child and you called them every day, leaving a message for them to call you back. You told them that you were longing to see them, talk to them, and spend some time together. Yet, you receive no response.
How do you think God feels when He tries to get our attention and we just go through our day without even calling on Him? I imagine it hurts His heart…a lot. You can see why He would be jealous of our time and our desires. He gives us a new heart of flesh that replaces the hard heart of stone. If we continue to put Him in first place in our lives, that heart will long for intimate times with Him.
God wants us to come to Him when we don’t really need anything but His time and presence. As our hearts learn to be undivided and give all our attention to our Father, He grows our hearts. Not only do we yearn for more time with Him, but we also desire to have His heart too. That’s when we start to love as He loves. We acquire a heart for the things that make his heart “ache.”
When we first start walking with the Lord, it’s hard to understand how our hearts need to be unified with His. But as we grow, we find that His love and His ways will soon squeeze out the things that divide our heart from His. Then our heart can be fully surrendered to the one who made it.
We were created to love Him, to serve Him, and one day to be like Him.
“I want more than anything to be in the courtyards of the Lord’s Temple. My whole being wants to be with the Living God!” Psalm 84:2
That, my friends, is a heart that is undivided. We are in this world, but the things of this world must never take precedence over our Father. The more you draw close to Him and get to know Him, the more you want to know about Him.
In today’s culture, you are either for God or against Him. The line has been drawn in the sand. Lukewarmness can no longer be a choice. We need to be all in if we truly want to inherit the kingdom of God. If we want to know that our names are written in the book of life, we must have an undivided heart, fully surrendered to Him. Whenever we waiver in our hearts, we start to veer off the straight and narrow path leading to Christ and start heading down the wide path of sin and destruction.
If your heart is divided, make a decision to surrender your whole heart to Jesus today. Live in the peace, love, and joy of an undivided heart fully surrendered to Christ, knowing that you will be with Him throughout eternity.
Beth Nahkala
Lean into Jesus Ministries
#bethnahkalablogs