Matthew 22:37 Jesus said to him, “’You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’
The heart is the decision making chamber and the soul is the action floor. His heart gathers wickedness to itself; when he goes outside, he tells it (Psalm 41:6b). The soul analyses the reality with the intellect and triggers our emotions but the heart looks beyond the reality into the supremacy of God’s power. The soul is our emotions, intellect and feelings but the heart listens to the inner voice of the Holy Spirit. While the soul is expressive and emotional, the control panel of our decisions is the heart. Hence the Bible talks about worshipping the Lord with ‘all your heart’ or ‘an undivided heart’. True expression of our love and adoration flows from an undivided heart.
There were kings in Judah such as Asa and his son Jehoshaphat who followed the Lord with all their heart yet they did not remove the high places of idol worship hence the hearts of the people were divided. The high places, however, were not removed, and the people still had not set their hearts on the God of their ancestors (2 Chronicles 20:33). Even now there are those who are sincere in their love and worship, yet they allow idols such as ‘materialism’, ‘egotism’ and ‘compromise’ to co-exist. As long as there is idolatry, the heart will be divided.
Idolatry is like ‘arrhythmias’ or ‘abnormal heart rhythms’. Arrhythmia is an abnormality where the heart is too slow or too fast resulting in irregular or disorganized rhythm. Arrhythmias can be very dangerous and can cause sudden heart arrest. Allegorically, the spiritual heart that is divided can go out of rhythm and cause severe spiritual heart attacks and weaken our faith.
Whole Heart vs Divided Heart:
1. Uncompromising: An undivided heart is uncompromising in the spiritual as well as in the social gatherings. Their faith is not hidden; faith is not a private affair but a public assertion. However, a person with a divided heart will live double lives. They will remove the garment of holiness as they leave the church premises. God hates duplicity and infidelity.
2. Unholy: A divided heart makes provision for mistakes and human weakness. The excuses we come up with for unforgiveness, slander or filthiness is from the chamber in the heart that satan has a foothold. A whole hearted worshipper is not perfect but has no hidden or known sins. Hate what is unholy, filthy or unwholesome.
3. Undivided: An undivided heart is simple, sincere and succulent. Paying tax is as important as paying our tithes. Hence it is not possible to be erratic and have bouts of sweetness and sourness, sincerity and slyness; we cannot be both simple and egoistic at the same time. Both sweet and bitter water cannot flow out of the same heart.
The God of the universe requires our wholehearted worship.
Psalm 119:10 With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments!
Prayer: King of the Cosmos, give me an undivided heart and teach me to love, serve and follow you with my whole heart. Amen
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