Partitioned Hearts

I recently attended a gripping and all-too-realistic live production portraying the Easter story. As I watched the crazed crowds screaming for Jesus’ crucifixion spit and hiss on my beloved, bloodied Saviour, I was horrified.

Someone has said that the most dangerous border on earth is the one running down the center of the human heart. The border that, when crossed, can make deserters out of disciples, murderers out of mothers, heartless killers out of doctors, and radicals out of moderates.

The horrifying resurgence of crucifixions and beheadings as a means of terror, torture, and punishment by Islamic jihadists has shocked and revulsed the civilized world. We turn from our screens, heart-sick and nauseous, at photos of beheadings and children’s bodies slung from crosses.

What kind of animals are these people, we ask? The kind of people Jesus loved and died for—anyway. People with partitioned hearts. Suffused with the cold-blooded hatred of the same fallen angel who cheered at the crucifixion of our Saviour. Satan, whose vile mission to blacken the Light has already been lost.

For most of us, a divided heart brings less obvious, but no less dangerous deviations. The phrase “uncommitted Christian” is as oxymoronic a phrase as “a little bit pregnant.” Only by giving Jesus Christ complete dominion, by digging deeply into the Word and relying on the Holy Spirit to mature and guide us, do we have the gift of divine strength to resist constant Enemy recruitment—and become dangerous to that Enemy.

Respond in Prayer

King of hearts, I invite the searchlight of your Holy Spirit to sweep through mine. Reveal and tear down any well-concealed partitions that hinder my commitment to love, follow and obey. And charge me with fresh enthusiasm to serve you now and always.

Kathleen Gibson