AN UNDIVIDED HEART
BREAD
4 Hear,
O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and
with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give
you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when
you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when
you get up. 8 Tie
them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes
of your houses and on your gates. 10 When the Lord
your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob, to give you--a land with large, flourishing cities you did not
build, 11 houses
filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not
dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant--then when you eat and
are satisfied, 12 be
careful that you do not forget the Lord,
who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. Deuteronomy 6:4-12 (NIV)
19 “I
will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove
from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. 20 Then they will follow my
decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people, and I will be
their God. 21 But as
for those whose hearts are devoted to their vile images and detestable idols, I
will bring down on their own heads what they have done, declares the Sovereign Lord.”
Ezekiel 11:19-21 (NIV)
11 Teach
me your way, O Lord, and I will
walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name. 12 I will praise you, O Lord my
God, with all my heart; I will glorify your name forever. Psalms 86:11-12 (NIV)
9 “And
you, my son Solomon, acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with
wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches every heart and understands every motive
behind the thoughts. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you
forsake him, he will reject you forever.”
1 Chronicles 28:9 (NIV)
35 One of
them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the
greatest commandment in the Law?” 37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord
your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This
is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And
the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All
the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Matthew 22:35-40 (NIV)
4 One
thing I ask of the Lord, this is
what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the
Lord and to seek him in his
temple. 5 For in
the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling; he will hide me in the
shelter of his tabernacle and set me high upon a rock. Psalms 27:4-5 (NIV)
12 Not
that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I
press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers, I do not consider
myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is
behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to
win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. 15 All of us who are mature should
take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that
too God will make clear to you. 16 Only let us live up to what we have already attained. Philippians 3:12-16 (NIV)
BUTTER
“O Lord our God,
grant us grace to desire Thee with our whole heart.” Anselm
“He who with his whole heart draws near to God must of
necessity be proved by temptation and trial.”
Albert the Great
“The spirit of devotion removes religion
from being a thin veneer and puts it into our souls. With devotion in our soul,
religion stops merely doing a work and becomes a heart, beating with the
pulsations of vigorous and radiant life. Dear Lord God, through a spirit of
devotion I can bring glory to Your name. Please grant me a heart beating with
vigor for You. Amen.”
E.M. Bounds
“Prayer must be incessant and should not
lack desire, spirit, or action. The knees may not always be bent, but the
spirit is always in the act and communication of prayer. The spirit of prayer
should sweetly rule and adjust all times and occasions. Our activities and work
should be performed in the same spirit that makes our devotion and our prayer
time sacred. Blessed is the person of God who thus understand prayer, at any
point, at any time. A full current of prayer is seen flowing from him.” E.M.
Bounds
“No one has ever
lost out by excessive devotion to Christ.”
H. A. Ironside
“True repentance
means we love God more than we love our sin. When He sees this type of
devotion, He opens up His arms and welcomes us with His unending grace.” Michael
Youssef
“Spiritual work is taxing work. We sometimes
become lax in our praying, and do not realize the peril until the damage has
been done. Hasty devotions make weak faith, feeble convictions, and
questionable piety. To be little with God is to be little for God. To cut the
praying short makes the whole Christian character short, miserable and
careless.” E.M.
Bounds
“In
God’s perfect economy, when we walk in faithful obedience to His commands, we
will discover that we NEVER out give Him.
What meager sacrifice on behalf of His children we perhaps make reaps a
sure harvest even though it be extraordinarily hard. We live our lives for an audience of One to
please Him not men.” BHY
“Our cries to
the Lord — are what give us communion with the Lord. It’s the dire distress that drives us into the
deep devotion. It’s when all fails, His love never fails — and this is why
we are a people who can always give thanks.” Ann
Voskamp
“We
should follow Christ in simplicity and faith, because the paths in which He
leads us all end in glory and immortality.
It is true they may not be smooth paths – they may be covered with sharp
flinty trials, but they lead to the ‘city with foundations, whose architect and
builder is God.’ ‘All the ways of the
Lord are loving and faithful for those who keep the demands of His
covenant.’ Let’s put full trust in our
Leader, since we know that, come prosperity or adversity, sickness or health,
popularity or contempt, His purpose shall be worked out, and that purpose shall
be pure, unmingled good to every heir of mercy…..His dear love will make us far
more blessed than those who sit at home and warm their hands at the world’s
fire.” Charles H. Spurgeon
HEART SAVOR
· God desires to be first in our lives. He will not share His rightful throne with anyone
or anything. A divided heart will not
stand.
- · When we seek first His kingdom and His righteousness He sees that all other things are added to us as well. 33 “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Matthew 6:33 (NIV)
·
May we be found faithful to love Him as He
first loved us.
