All Or Nothing: An Undivided Heart

The ‘All Or Nothing’ message, at its root, begins with an undivided heart. When our worship is not solely devoted to God, we fall into idolatry and lose our ultimate potential. God desires a generation that has an undivided heart; a generation that will give its all… or nothing at all.

We cannot serve two masters. It’s not simply that we should not serve two masters, but that we cannot. Luke 16:13 says, “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other.” When God is not primary, the other things vying for our attention get our allegiance. No one is capable of serving God and serving their own desires; it’s either God or us. Once we choose to make God secondary, God becomes distasteful to us. Before we know it, we don’t want to be around God and we don’t want to talk about Him. Timothy Keller describes idolatry by saying, “When we build our lives on anything but God, that thing – though a good thing – becomes an enslaving addiction, something we have to have in order to be happy.” We were created to worship. As Pastor Matt Chandler states, “We want to worship something. Worship is an innate response. We are wired for it by God himself.” But what we give our worship to is the key.

What exactly is worship? According to Matt Chandler, “Worship is the attribution of ultimate worth to something.” Chandler continues, “When this ultimate worth is attributed to anyone or anything other than the one, true triune God of the universe, it is idolatry.” The Bible says that anything we place above God is an idol. If our sports teams, our friends, music, or anything else becomes more important to us than Jesus Christ, it becomes an idol. The Bible says that King David was a man after God’s own heart. One of the main reasons that this was said about him was because of his burning desire for an undivided heart. David wrote in Psalms 86:11, “Teach me your way, Lord, that I may rely on your faithfulness; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name.” Again, in Psalms 51, after David had sinned against God, he cries out for a heart that is purely devoted to Him when he says, “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” King David was a man after the heart of God, and that is the type of generation that God wants. He is not looking for perfect people, but people with an undivided heart.

Many times we begin to think, “I have been faithful to God for a long time, I just want to do what I want for a little bit,” but faithfulness doesn’t work like that. It’s is not about the length of your faithfulness, it’s about the day by day. If a couple had been married for fifty years, and the husband had never looked at, thought about, or even entertained a thought about another woman, it would never make it okay for him to begin to flirt with another woman simply because he had been faithful for fifty years. When we give our lives to Christ, we put on a wedding ring; we make a commitment of faithfulness and fidelity. God is looking for daily devoted disciples. He is looking for a generation that will give Him their undivided allegiance, passion, and love day by day. 

A divided heart equals a divided potential. Unless we give God everything we are capable of, we will never reach the potential that God intended for our lives. The catch to this statement is that this is impossible…..on our own. We are not capable of giving all that God requires. Thankfully, God doesn’t ask us to do it alone. He provides the Holy Spirit and His all sufficient grace to help us do what we can’t do on our own. When we surrender he gives us the strength for whatever he calls us to do. As Guillermo Maldonado says, “The only ability God requires is availability.” Unless we surrender everything to Christ, we will never reach the peak of what God has created us to be and do.

A generation that is consumed with the things of the world will never see a great move of God. The generation that will see revival is the generation that is dedicated exclusively to Jesus Christ. God doesn’t ask for perfect people, he gave us a perfect Savior. God asks for a people willing to follow him no matter the cost. He asks for people who give Him their undivided heart. But, we cannot accomplish the task in our own strength; thankfully, God doesn’t ask us to. God provides the grace as we provide the faith. An undivided heart starts with the day by day; it starts with daily devotion to Christ. God is calling this generation to give our all, starting with our hearts.