TOPIC:‌“The Desire for An Undivided Heart”

                 by Rev. Dr. Reg Dunlap

 

TEXT:‌Psalms 86:1-13

 

“Give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name” (86:11, NIV)

 

‌The Psalm before us is not only a prayer by David for God to have mercy upon him and to protect his life, but it is also a prayer that God would unite his heart so that it would be totally devoted to Him. May I say that is a prayer that all Christians should pray.

 

‌The reason being is that there are so many Christians with the problem of divided hearts. Partly for Christ and partly for self. Partly surrendered and partly reserved. Partly for the Kingdom of God and partly for the kingdom of this world. Now such a situation makes for an ineffective, unsatisfied and unhealthy life. Even Jesus stated: “He that is not with Me is against Me” (Matthew 12:30).

 

‌This is the great struggle going on within the lives of all Christians. It was David's problem. To be spiritually-minded or self-minded. We know that nothing was so nauseating to Christ than the half-hearted surrender of one's life to Him. Remember His words to the Christians at Laodicea: “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm - neither hot nor cold - I am about to spit you out of my mouth” (Revelation 3:15, 16).

 

‌In this message with the help of the Holy Spirit I want to endeavor to challenge those of you living in the realm of the self-life to move with God's help into the realm of the surrendered life.

 

I.

 

‌Consider, to begin with, the EXAMINATION of a divided heart. Notice again the prayer of the Psalmist: “Give me an undivided heart.” The KJV renders it: “Unite my heart.” Here David was living a double life, but he passionately desired to experience the life of the pure in heart. Hence we have the rendering of the NLT: “Grant me purity of heart that I may honor you.”

 

‌We do well to remind ourselves that later the Apostle Paul of the New Testament had the same problem that David was presently going through in the Old Testament. Listen as he declared: “For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do - this I keep on doing” (Romans 7:19). Here we find a man dealing with a problem common to all Christians - the indwelling presence of sin that once owned him as a slave. It was still giving him trouble.

 

‌The tragic thing is that many of us have not come to that place of desperation to which David came . . .