An Undivided Heart

An undivided heart is one that has an intimate, loving and deep relationship with God and no other love comes before this. There is no competition in this heart, God is first.

As with any relationship this takes an investment of ourselves, our time, energy, mind and strength. Now, if we think of this as a chore, a responsibility, an "I should" then we will never get to a depth of love that causes our hearts to be whole in Him.

Have you ever been in love?

How did you get that way? Wasn't there something that drew you in to want to know more of the person? As you did, you wanted to know them more, spend more time with them. You felt more alive, more joyous and more excited every day. As we pursue God it is the same way.

Scripture says to "taste and see that the Lord is good." As we "taste and see" we find that He is what we have always desired, He fills our deepest needs, and and we want to spend more time with Him.

It is a lack of real relationship with God that makes Christianity dry and lifeles, but it is truly knowing Him that brings life and peace and real joy to our lives. So, in this section we talk about pursuing God until there is no other love within us to compete with Him.

How do I learn to love Him?

Spend time with Him. I don't mean time learning about Him; I don't mean time spent asking Him for things; I don't mean just reading about Him or saying prayers before bed, I mean actual time with Him - hanging out, being with Him, talking about your life, learning to hear His voice - like you would with anyone else you love.

One way to spend time and go deeper with God is through spiritual disciplines like Practicing the Presence of God, or Silence and Solitude, or Meditation. These are just ways to be with Him, learn who He is and fall more deeply in love with Him.

So few of us spend time just being with God. The more we do though, the more joy becomes the dominant emotion of our day. The more we know of Christ, the more we love Him, the more we love Him the more we want to surrender our lives to what He wants rather than what we have thought we wanted. And what He wants for us is to give Himself to us.

In the Old Testament there are so many instances where the Lord tells the people how He has loved them, how He was wanted to bless them and how He has been like a husband to them but how they have turned from Him and gone after other lovers.

Their hearts were divided and they loved other things more than God. He speaks of His grief over this and how He longs to restore their love relationship. His desires no other lover to come before Him.

What does an undivided heart look like?

It will show itself in a single-minded character. This is a person whose main goal, main purpose, and main passion is God. That means we live to please the One we love in everything we do. It does not mean we won't mess this up at times, it just means that He is our main love and we pursue Him.

The Lord said of David, "this is a man after my own heart." David!? Really!? Didn't he commit adultery and then have the woman's husband killed when she came up pregnant? Didn't he allow his son to go unpunished when he raped his sister? THIS is a man after God's own heart? Yeah, he is. Why?

Read what David says in Psalms. He grieves over his sins because he knows He has hurt the God who loves him. Even though he has sinned greatly, he still seeks after God, loves Him and wants to please Him.

That is an undivided heart. It still messes up and sometimes on a big scale but it repents over how it has affected relationship with the God who loves and then gets back on track.

The goal isn't perfection, it is pursuit

In the book of Revelation, Christ say, "because you are neither hot nor cold, because you are lukewarm, I will spit you out of my mouth." We are talking about the God of the universe wanting to be in a love relationship with Him but we can be so lukewarm about it!! Here, "lukewarm" is a definition of insanity.

We are only lukewarm, only insane, when we don't really KNOW Christ, haven't really EXPERIENCED His love and haven't really spent time with Him.

We are either pursuing loving God or we aren't. He is never fooled but we can do a good job of trying to fool ourselves, telling ourselves that we go to church on Sunday so we are cool with God.

We can go to our Lord and ask Him for a heart check up. Take some time to sit with God. What do you feel in His presence? If it is not a passionate love then that should give you a good indication on where your heart is and whether you need to work on it with Him.

Lord, give us an undivided heart that loves you more than anything in this life.

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An Undivided Heart is one part of being formed in Christ. Another part is working with our emotions. Click here to learn more about this.

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