Am I undivided?

It's early in the morning and I am sitting in my office with a cup of coffee, needing and hoping to hear from God. I say a short "Good morning Lord" prayer then as His Word sits open on my desk and I read Psalm 86.

As I read, I come to verses 10-13:

10 For you are great and do marvelous deeds; you alone are God. ¹¹ Teach me your way, LORD, that I may rely on your faithfulness; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name. ¹² I will praise you, Lord my God, with all my heart; I will glorify your name forever. ¹³ For great is your love toward me; you have delivered me from the depths, from the realm of the dead.

That verse 11 really stood out to me: "give me an undivided heart". What is David praying for here? When scriptures speak about an undivided heart it is speaking about a heart that "knows God and knows that He is Lord" (Jeremiah 24:7) and a person who's heart is backed up by his actions (Jeremiah 32:39).

I think that is the call of the church in the United States today. I think we have learned to separate our heart from our actions. In other words, we love Jesus as a Savior, full of never ending grace and mercy. But Jesus as Lord of our life is intermittent at best.

God not only wanted Israel to return to Him with an undivided heart, but He wants His church to have undivided hearts as well.

Does our life match up with our hopeful words? When we praise Jesus as our Savior do we submit to Him as our Master?

I see a dangerous practice in America's churches today of loving the Savior but ignoring the Lord. We often seem to have a rationalization of our actions with the hopeful belief of total forgiveness when we get to the gates of heaven, in spite of the collateral damage we have managed to leave while here on earth. Paul spoke of this in Romans when he wrote in Romans 6: ¹ What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? ² By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? ³ Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴ We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

Paul wrote this to remind us that Jesus can not be just our Savior...He must also be our Lord. A heart that is undivided lives a life that is not only saved by God but also is a servant to His will and His way.

Well, I got my prayer answered...God spoke to me. Now, what am I going to do about it? How about you?

Take care,

Rod

Whatever happened to that kind of commitment?

Did you know that professional golfers hit hundreds of golf balls a day and thousands of golf balls a week? When I think of that, my initial reaction is "Man, I would love to be able to do that!" But when I really think about it. I like to hit some balls at the range, but not hundreds of them at a time. In fact, the range bores me. I would much rather go out and play a round than hit 125 five irons. I'm not that committed. But I am amazed at how committed the pros are on the tour. Hitting 5 iron after 5 iron for hours. Chipping and putting for hours. All to maybe get one stroke better at the next tournament. It takes an amazing commitment to be a PGA tour pro. Then the more I read I begin to understand that the older the golfer gets, the more he has to work out and hit balls. His natural ability slows down a little and he has to make up for it by getting in shape, maybe even changing his shot a little, all little adjustments to keep himself competitive. His commitment level has to rise to a whole new level in order to remain competitive on the PGA tour.

I wonder what would happen if we could be that committed in the things of our lives. Not just our jobs and hobbies, but also things like our marriages and discipleship.

I wonder what kind of husbands and wives we could be if our commitment level would rise the longer we remained married. What if our devotion to each other and to the family actually increased over time? If we worked at the basics of selfless love, respect for one another, and unconditional love for our spouse each and every day. If we looked for new ways to honor our spouse and love them even more than we have in the past. If we didn't worry so much about how we were being treated, but instead practiced serving and loving our spouse over and over again. I wonder what would happen to not just our immediate family, but also our kids families and our grandkids? Did you know, that what you are doing now in your family will effect the next 5 generations? Pretty big responsibility isn't it? Do you have that kind of commitment?

Finally, I wonder what would happen if our commitment level to the things of Christ rose every day of our lives. If instead of getting into a rut in our life as a believer, we became a disciple of Christ. What if we actually went from believer to disciple? A follower, an imitator, a worker for the cause of Christ. When we take on the commitment level of increasing our involvement with the things of God, He truly then becomes our Lord. Lord means He's our master. He makes the rules of our lives. He decides how and where we are to live. He decides how the time and money of our lives is used. He decides. I wonder what would happen to our communities, our churches, and our world if we raised the level of our commitment to being a disciple, not just a believer, but a follower...I wonder? Do you have that kind of commitment?

I wonder what happened to that kind of commitment?

Take care,

Rod