You only have one heart, figuratively and literally. Have you ever seen those cheesy romantic movies where some guy or some girl tells their significant other that they couldn’t fall in love with anyone else because they already gave their heart away? There you go.
When you give your heart to someone, it’s not really easy to take it back. So you have to be careful who you give your heart to. And, no, I’m not going to talk about romance and love or whatever this morning. Giving your heart to someone has a lot more to do than being romantically involved.
In Western culture, the seat of the emotions is in the heart. We talk about our heart being broken. We talk about putting our whole heart into something. We talk about wishing with all our heart. What we mean when we say that is that we put our whole self into something.
In other countries, the seat of the emotion is in other vital parts of anatomy. It’s not the heart, but the concept is the same.
There’s only one you. So be careful who you give yourself away to.
I thought about this when I read todays verse, 1 John 2:15-16.
15 Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you. 16 For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world.
You can’t give your heart away to God and to the world at the same time. It doesn’t work because the two are diametrically opposed. What the world wants from you will hurt you and leave you broken and empty and unsatisfied. But what God wants for you is truly in your best interest — though our own pride and vanity convinces us that He’s just out to spoil our fun.
You can only do one or the other. And if you choose to give your heart to the world, you will learn sooner or later that it can’t provide you with the things you need. Maybe it will give you everything you want at first, but eventually you’ll understand that it demands from you more than you can give. And what it takes from you is unequal to what you invest.
I guess I’m being metaphorical this morning. My coffee isn’t working yet.
When I say the world, I’m not talking about people. I’m talking about the base conditions of life that our world exists in. Drinking to get drunk. Having sex with anyone and everyone. Pornography. Anxiety. Gluttony. Laziness. Selfishness. Pride. If you give yourself over to behavior like that, it will seem fun at first but eventually it will come back and destroy you. Because, as James Bond’s family motto says, “Orbis non sufficit“: The world is not enough.
The world takes all your energy and your passion and your good intentions and drains you dry. And maybe at the beginning you will experience the physical pleasure you were seeking, but eventually that’s going to fade and you’ll be left with nothing but a craving for something you can no longer feel. The world makes you a bottomless pit, you want everything but nothing makes you happy.
Does anyone want a life like that?
I don’t.
I chose a long time go to give my heart to God because all He asks from us is faith — and even on the days when faith feels impossible He doesn’t leave us. And while giving your heart to God may not feel good or may cause you to make decisions sometimes that hurt, the end result is satisfying. Because you’ve invested yourself in something that is truly making a difference.
So if you’ve given your heart to the world, can you give it to God? Of course. But it can’t be a half-hearted attempt. You only have one heart. And tearing it in two pieces never works, either figuratively or literally. And even if you’re in pieces when you give yourself to God, He still wants you. He works better with broken pieces anyway.
Am I talking about trusting in Christ? Sure. But this is a problem that Christians have. They choose to believe that Jesus saved them, but they leave their heart with the world. It shouldn’t be that way.
So check your motivation. I am. I only have one heart and I want to make sure I give it to the right person because taking it back hurts more than just me.
Always Peachy 