A divided heart is a sure formula for spiritual failure.
“Above all else, guard your heart, for [your heart] is the wellspring of life.” Proverbs 4:23 NIV.
My thoughts and comments today are about,
“Matters of the Heart.”
Often, we are people with divided hearts. Inconsistency and inner conflict are natural to us. That can be very confusing to ourselves, as well as others. Openly and honestly, Paul expressed the frustration of such spiritual inconsistency. “What I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do.” Read Romans 7:14-25 NKJV. There is an unrelenting spiritual struggle for preeminence.
That struggle between the flesh and spirit is unavoidable for those who commit to follow Christ. Within you is a new nature that is fashioned after Christ and draws you toward the person that you really want to be, redeemed, delivered, and brand new in Jesus. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ.” 2 Corinthians 5:17-18 NIV.
Still your old nature longs to revert to its selfish, sinful ways in opposition to your new life in Christ – set in its ways, preferring its own will, and seeking its pleasure with regard to neither God nor His will. You know the drill. You face it every day in some measure. Sometimes subtle, sometimes blatant.
Your humanity would like to have it both ways, but that is not viable. Living right and doing the right thing most of the time, but occasionally doing as you wish when convenient and desirable to you is a proven path to a miserable life. My Dad once described a friend of mine as having, “Too much of God in Him to enjoy the world and too much of the world in him to enjoy living for God.” That can be truer of any of us than we wish it to be.
“God gave testimony and said, ‘I have found David, a man after My own heart, who will do all My will’ . . The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” Acts 13:22 NKJV/1 Samuel 16:7 NIV. You must cry out to God as David did, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” Psalm 51:10 NKJV. Spiritual ambivalence – being painfully drawn in incompatible directions – produces a divided heart.
A divided heart is a sure formula for spiritual failure. “So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want.” Read Galatians 5:16-25 NIV. The faithful Holy Spirit will convict your heart of sin and stir your longing for God.
The victory in this spiritual dilemma is found by choosing clearly, firmly, and finally to only and always follow Jesus. Allow yourself no exemption, excuses, exceptions, or compromises. Even small compromises produce large complications. Jesus made both the problem and solution a matter of the heart,“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” Luke 10:27 NKJV.
Today, I pray for you that your heart belongs to Jesus fully and always.
Christian Communications 2017