Psalm 86:11 “Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart to revere your name.” Today's episode is about how our heart is divided between what God wants and what we want. It also talks about how there are two spirits competing for our souls. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
A Divided Heart
Psalm 86:11 “Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart to revere your name.”
God has been teaching us His way since the beginning. He has always guided and us showed us how we should live. I don’t thing the problem is God not teaching us, I think the problem is our divided heart. The end of this verse says give me an undivided heart to revere your name. To revere someone’s name means to honor and admire it. Are we doing that with God’s name? I don’t think we are. I hear people taking the Lord’s name in vain all throughout the day. It’s not always in a bad way, and yet it is not used to revere God. Think back over the last 24 hours. Have you used God’s name in the last 24 hours? How did you use it? Were you honoring and admiring God when you used it? What can we do to get back to revering God’s name?
God has done a great job of teaching us His ways. At first He walked and talked with Adam and Eve and I am sure they had some great conversations. However, after the fall that type of relationship was no longer permitted. Even though we were no longer living in that same environment God found ways over the years to teach us His ways. He used prophets and other faithful people to teach us all we needed to know. Then God sent His only son to walk among us and to teach us. He also sent His son so our relationship could be healed and there was no long anything standing in between us and the real presence of God. Then all these lessons and stories were written down so those of us who came after would know how God expected us to live.
If we want to know how to walk it God’s truth, we can find out. God has taught us many times over. So, what’s the problem then? The problem is our divided heart. The problem is, we live in a world that is so contrary to everything God teaches us. Our hearts are divided because we love this world. We love our friends, we love our family, we love our TVs and our cars and all of our stuff. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It is good to love our families and friends. It may even be ok to love your stuff. What definitely isn’t ok is to love that stuff more than God. You might be thinking you’re good, you are sure you don’t love your stuff, your family or your friends more than God. But, what if we looked at how your are spending your time? Are you spending more time with your family, friends & TV more than you are spending with God? What if we looked at your finances? Are you spending lots of money on material things and not much money on the church, charity, or the poor?
God is so good. I took a break from writing this episode so I could get my run in because I could feel my motivation to do the run dwindling. I don’t know about you but I need to get my workouts done in the morning or they just don’t happen. While I was on the run I was listening to some personal development podcast. However, after a while I switched to praise music. As soon as I did God put on a song that goes perfectly with the podcast. I love when He does that! Does this ever happen to you? You are wondering about something, thinking about something, or just really need encouragement about something and the perfect song for that moment comes on the radio? This was actually the second day in a row for this to happen to me. God is so good.
The song that I think makes the point I am trying to make really well is called House Divided by Josh Wilson. There lyrics are as follows:
Could someone tell me why,
old habits just won't die,
It's like I've got two hearts inside one chest.
And one is beating for the life I'm headed toward
The other wants to drag me to my death
Bridge:
I am a house divided, but I've decided I'm gonna fight it,
I do what I don't want to, Oh God I need you,
to make me new.
Chorus:
Everyday (x3)
Verse 2:
I've never understood,
the folks that think we're good,
whenever we are left to our desires,
Oh, the way i see it is,
Alone, we are adrift,
in an ocean in a boat we set on fire.
I especially like when the part that says, “ I am a house divided, but I've decided I'm gonna fight it,
I do what I don't want to, Oh God I need you, to make me new.” I feel as though I am saying this very thing to God every day! I tell Him I am sorry for putting this, that, or the other thing in front of Him yet again. I ask Him to help me because I, like St. Paul said in Romans 7:15 “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” This is what Josh is saying in this song. He knows what he should do and yet what he knows and what he does are two different things. I also like when he said, “It's like I've got two hearts inside one chest. And one is beating for the life I'm headed toward the other wants to drag me to my death.”
This is actually what is happening. There are two spirits competing for your soul. The Holy Spirit is living inside of you and is trying to lead you to the life you are headed towards. He is leading to you the amazing life God has planned for you. The one that is so much better than you can even imagine. Then there is the devil. He is fighting for your death. He would like nothing more than to drag your soul down to hell for eternal suffering. I know that doesn’t sound good and it may even sound scary. I am not trying to scare you, I am trying to tell you what is going on. Do you ever wonder why everything is so hard, why it feels like there is this force working agains you? The reason is because there is a force working against you. The enemy is strong and he is willing to do whatever it takes to win your soul.
God gave us free will and the enemy uses that against us. He whispers lies into our ears all day long. He tells us we are not good enough, he tells us we will never measure up. He tells us we won’t ever loose the weight anyway, so why bother trying? He tells us it’s ok to sit on the couch and watch tv all day, we don’t have anything else to do anyway. He tells us its ok if we aren’t living up to our potential, there are lots of people that aren’t and we are doing better than a lot of other people. He fills our heads with these lies so often we start to believe them. This is why our hearts feel so divided. Just as this songs says, we need to recognize this is happening and we need to consciously decide to fight it. We need to call upon God, He is the only one who can truly help us fight it. I will leave you with the words of today’s verse, “Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart to revere your name.”
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless everyone listening to this episode today. Lord, we want to walk in your truth, please help us. Teach us your ways, soften our hearts and incline our ears so we can hear you. Lord, give us an undivided heart. If our heart is already divided, please help us put it back together again! Lord, help us to put you first above all things. If there is anything we are putting above you, please put it on our hearts and then give us the strength to change it. We love you Lord, you are so powerful. You are the Almighty one and you are the Prince of Peace. We adore thee, we bow before thee, holy is your name. Lord, we are so grateful for all you do and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen.
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. Can I ask you a favor? If you are enjoying this podcast, can you share it with at least one friend today? Next to the title, or somewhere on the page there is usually three dots and if you click on that it gives you lots of options, one is usually to share the episode. Also, if you could subscribe, rate and review the podcast, that would help ensure that more people can find the podcast. Your reviews really do matter, it helps the platform know you like the show and think others should listen too. Thank you so much for your support! It means the world to me. I appreciate you showing up to listen. I look forward to hanging out with you tomorrow. Remember, Jesus loves you and so do I! Have a blessed day!