I talked by phone with our granddaughter from Boston Saturday. She reported that her family is well. She said that they had some guests Saturday and were attending a birthday party, and attending worship services Sunday. Jessica and Tom flew to Nicaragua for a short winter vacation Sunday. The Lord blessed us with an beautiful Lord's day. After morning worship some of my nieces and nephews and one of their friends came to watch the Super Bowl and were sharing some of the traditional Super Bowl food.

I have been reflecting on some of the great players who play with an undivided heart. We have seen a clip from the movie, "Rudy", which is about a young man playing with undivided heart. Psalm 86:11 addresses that very concept. “Give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name” (Psalm 86:11). The NASB renders it, "Unite my heart to fear your name." The CEB gives a more general sense, "Make my heart focused only on honoring your name.” Then we have this paraphrase from the ERV, “Help me make worshiping your name the most important thing in my life." Eugene Peterson (MSG) gives us this colorful rendering: “Put me together, one heart and mind; then, undivided, I’ll worship in joyful fear.”

I like Eugene Peterson's paraphrase because it sounds like the way I often pray: “Put me together, Lord, because right now my life is scattered in a thousand directions.” Most days my heart doesn’t seem “undivided,” and it certainly feels like it needs some kind of “uniting." So I like the phrases: “Unite my heart to fear your name.” "Give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name.”
Because my heart is so often divided, I need the Lord to unite it somehow so that I might worship him with nothing held back. That is the situation many of us face . Our hearts are fragmented because we are pulled in so many directions at once.

How difficult is to keep our focus on the true treasures of life! How easy to mistake the trinkets for treasures! Focus on the trinkets, the sparkly things, of life pull ours attention from the Lord and His Kingdom.

A verse from 1 Chronicles 12 comes to mind which lists the soldiers who came to David’s aid when he was in Ziklag and later in Hebron. These soldiers from various tribes in Israel realized that even though David was not king over Israel yet, God’s hand was upon him and he was bound to replace Saul sooner or later. The men were from Benjamin, Gad, Manasseh, and so on. Perhaps the most famous were the men of Issachar (1 Chronicles 12:32) who “understood the times and knew what Israel should do.” Many fine sermons have been preached in praise of these men from one of the lesser-known tribes. Then in the very next verse we find an uncommon note about the warriors from the tribe of Zebulon. They are described as "experienced soldiers prepared for battle with every type of weapon, to help David with undivided loyalty. (v. 33).
This great host of trained soldiers came to David, ready to fight. They showed up in full battle gear with shield, spears, and bows, ready to go to battle at a moment’s notice. There is something even better to be said about them. They were men of “undivided loyalty.”

These lines from Come, Thou Fount speak to our deepest need:
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.
If the first two lines describe our need, then the last two lines describe our prayer. May God take our scattered hearts and unite them, seal them by his grace, that we might serve him with joy on earth as one day we will serve him in heaven.
In Christ,
Brown
http://youtu.be/nXVwHONoLjE