November 21, 2016

Undivided

Devotion for the Week...

There are some quilters who want to paper-piece all of their projects and others who hand piece everything. There are some who only do traditional piecing...no paper piecing, no applique and no hand stitching at all. There are even people who only make quilt tops, but always send them out for others to do the quilting. Me, I want to do a little bit of everything!

I have made little forays into garment sewing in the last couple of years and I'm working hard at not allowing myself to take up knitting. I see so many gorgeous knitting projects that I really want to try, but I keep telling myself that I already don't have enough time for all the quilts I want to make and I don't need to add a whole new obsession to the list of things I'm trying to make time for!

I think I'd get bored if everything I made had to be done with the same techniques. I enjoy mixing it up...a little traditional piecing, a little hand stitching, a bit of paper piecing and embroidery here and there too, with lots of intricate machine quilting. What about you? Do you divide your sewing/crafting time between lots of different things, or do you keep it all fairly streamlined?

Dividing time between many things is fine when it comes to our hobbies, but not so much when it comes to our worship. The psalmist wrote, "Teach me your way, Lord, that I may rely on your faithfulness; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name. I will praise you, Lord my God, with all my heart; I will glorify your name forever. For great is your love toward me; you have delivered me from the depths, from the realm of the dead" (Psalm 86:11-13).

Here, the undivided heart isn't talking about our interests or our hobbies, but rather about our hearts being solely focused on God. About turning to Him alone as the object of our worship.

This has been a hard thing for people to get right.

Joshua had to deal with it while he was leader of the Israelites, finally telling them, "But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord" (Joshua 24:15).

Then there was Elijah, who told the people, "How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him" (1 Kings 18:21). 

Of course, this was no surprise to God, who included as His first two commandments, "You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.  You shall not bow down to them or worship them" (Exodus 20:3-5).

And, in case we should feel that this was only an Old Testament problem, one we are not susceptible to since we are not in the habit of setting up false gods for ourselves, Jesus said, "No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money" (Matthew 6:24).

No one sets money, or anything else, on an actual altar and proceeds to hold a worship service in honour of it. But there is no question that we often have our hearts focused on things rather than on God. Not that there is anything wrong with things. The problems come when our pursuit of those things interferes with our pursuit of God. 

Weekly devotions on Christian living | DevotedQuilter.blogspot.com

And it's not always physical things. Sometimes we pursue approval from people, or influence with someone or success, however we may define that in a given situation. They may not be physical things we can hold in our hands, but they are certainly things that can take precedence in our lives if we're not careful.

Jesus told us the greatest commandment is for us to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind" (Matthew 22:37). All your heart. All your soul. All your mind.

Undivided.

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