The man answered, “‘You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.’ And, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
A Divided Heart
Our Hearts- We can say that we love God with ALL of our hearts but is it true? What does that look like? There are two ways our hearts can be divided.
#1 What we treasure
When it comes to the heart the Bible has some very specific passages about having a divided heart.
24 “No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and be enslaved to money. Matthew 6:24 NLT
This is “the love of money is the root of all evil” Passage. So many times through that verse has been tweaked just a little and the meaning of this verse is changed. Money is not the root of all evil. It when your money owns you that it is evil. Do you think about it? Obccess over it? I’ve got news for you….You can have no money at all and still LOVE money! The better question I think here would be Does money keep you from serving and obeying God? Are you willing to compromise you relationships, morals and relationship with God to get more money? Or preserve what you already have?
Is money your EXCUSE for not serving or obeying God?
BUT this principle can be applied to more than money
Let me ask this question:
What is distracting you from God being master over your life?
- Your family?
- Your friends?
- Job?
- Reaching the next level of success?
- Your pet? (yes I have heard that one)
- Home?
- Your hobbies?
What owns you? None of these things are wrong in and of themselves. Matter of fact ALL of them are really good BUT when we let these things distract us from God-
- Church/ connecting with other believers
- Bible Study/ Devotions
- Prayer
We have a divided heart.
What do you treasure?
What does your heart long for and desire? When we look at that passage about serving two masters it is always advantageous for us to look a few verse ahead. In verse 21 of Matthew 6 is says,
21 Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be. (NLT)
Like verse says NO ONE CAN SERVE TWO MASTERS! It’s impossible…. so if something else has your heart GOD DOESN’T.
#2 What we hold onto
The second area we can have a divided heart on is really the things or areas of our lives we hold onto.
Whether is be sin, shame or guilt.
Sin
Now this one is two fold. Either we are holding onto a sin that we have done in the past and tuck it away in our hearts behind lock and key. It is in a dusty dark little room with cobwebs It’s untouchable – by us and God. We don’t want to deal with it. God is not allowed in that room. He can have everything else that looks pretty- just NOT that one space.
OR
We have sin we are still living in. We buy into lies that God’s ways set forth in the Bible are antiquated. . We live by the motto- “it’s not sin unless we get caught”. OR we live with our sin like it’s a badge of honor. (I just wrote about this not long ago. ). We take our impatience or our lack of grace (or any other sin) and say “well that just the way God made me”. WRONG. That’s your sin nature and as long as you use it as an excuse to keep from becoming more like Christ than you are living divided and God doesn’t have ALL of you heart. Sin has become your master.
GUILT AND SHAME
These two go hand in hand and is DIRECTLY LINKED TO SIN. Guilt and shame can become masters in our lives when we hold onto what Christ paid for on the cross.. Sin is still your master. (Whether it be your own sin OR SOMEONE else’s)
We believe we aren’t worthy of……because of that sin. We might give it to God on Sunday but Yank it back and hold onto it on Monday. Our guilt and our shame become our identity (more on that tomorrow). It cripples us from doing what God wants us to do because either we believe that we cannot be worthy of being used because of whatever happened OR we are so afraid of someone else finding out. And at that point Fear has become our master.
The Problem is ……
You cannot say you Love God with all of your heart and live in fear, sin or distracted by all the other things. When our hearts are fully and I mean FULLY given to God it is the greatest act of love AND it shows who we REALLY are That my friends leads us into tomorrow and the conversation on a divided soul.
Thank you so much for joining me today as we begin our mini-series on being divided. I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below and if you are new here WELCOME!!! Please introduce yourself in the comments and feel free to poke around.
Also check out all the other posts in the Choosing Courage 100 day blogging project (Today is day 89)
