A Divided Heart

“Their heart is divided; now shall they be found faulty.”
Hosea 10:2

“Teach me your way, O Lord. I will walk in your truth.
Unite my heart to fear your name.”
Psalm 86:11

The worst of all spiritual conditions is to have a divided heart. A divided heart is a heart that fears both God and men, or both God and the devil. A divided heart loves God, and loves the world, too; and while the world will congratulate you for not giving all your heart to Jesus, God will destroy you for it. God would rather that someone hate Him than to love Him and love the world. And He would rather someone have no faith at all in Him than to have faith in both His power and the devil’s.

There was a Pastor with a divided heart in the ancient city of Laodicea. Jesus sent him this message, “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I prefer that you be either cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I am about to vomit you out of my mouth.”

The most troublesome people on earth are God’s people whose hearts are divided. They cause the body of Christ far more pain and suffering than the world possibly can. When the Lord chastens or reproves those with a divided heart, they often go to unbelievers with their complaint because they know enough truth to know that unbelievers cannot discern where they really are. Judas had a divided heart. Judas loved Jesus . . . and money. And after Jesus exposed Judas’ slander among the disciples, Judas betrayed him. No one else could have done that.

The Romans would not on their own have crucified the Lord, but the Jewish elders with divided hearts cornered Pilate and forced him to give the order to have it done. That is why Jesus told Pilate that the sin of the Jews was greater than Pilate’s sin (Jn. 19.11).

In the sermon on the mount, Jesus said, “The lamp of the body is the eye; therefore, if your eye be single, your whole body will be light; but if your eye be evil, your whole body will be dark. Therefore, if the light in you be darkness, how great that darkness is!”

The darkest place in Creation is not one of those Black Holes that astrophysicists have discovered in outer space. The most darkened place in this Creation, according to God, is the soul of saints whose hearts are divided between their God and this world (Jer. 17:9).

James exhorts saints with divided heart with these words: “Submit yourselves to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.”

Sound advice. The most agonizing torment in the Lake of Fire is reserved for those whose affections and thoughts are controlled by the love of God . . . and by love for someone else.