Undivided Love

Undivided Love

Read: Luke 10:27

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind.”

Luke 10:27

“Man is most truly himself . . . not when he toils but when he adores.”

—Vida Scudder

IN WORD Most Christians walk a fuzzy line between devotion to God and devotion to other things. We believe in our hearts, of course, that we should be wholly committed to God and love Him fully, and we desire to do so. But at war against our undivided love for Him are other attractions— things we might call minor flaws or distracting habits; attitudes we might know are pushing the limits of Christian character but are hard to resist; pleasures we might entertain without wanting to ask God whether or not they are within His parameters. We can live with a little bit of impurity.

But Jesus doesn’t ask for low levels of tolerance for impurities and indiscretions. He implies no tolerance for them. What He specifically asks for is wholehearted, undying, all-out, passionate love for the Creator. According to the law of Moses and the gospel of Jesus, God desires everything that is in us. Every corner of our hearts, every ounce of our strength, every impulse of our minds, every breath of our souls. He wants it all. Everything.

The grand deception of the enemy is that this type of passion for God would rob us of pleasures and privileges. Satan wars against that kind of love, and so does our self-centered flesh. We are divided in our hearts, and are miserable. Paul felt it, too: “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24). But he didn’t have to tell us. We have experienced it ourselves.

IN DEED When it finally dawns on us that an all-out passion for God—regardless of whatever petty sacrifices it may involve—is incredibly fulfilling, we’re amazed that we were ever divided in the first place. Missing out by obeying and loving God? That’s ludicrous. Jesus was right. This is the greatest commandment. Be obsessed with it.