Whole-heartedness is called for again and again in God’s Word. When I was ten I gave my little baby-heart to Jesus….all that I knew of myself to all that I knew of Him. I recognized the sinful nature of humankind, even my own, and the need for a Savior. But there were parts of my life that had not yet even come into being – marriage, parenting, financial decisions, career, sexuality, and so much more.
At 38 I realized that there were parts of my heart that had come into being over which I was exercising dominion. I knew a whole lot more about sinfulness, especially my own, and a bit more about God than I had 26 years earlier. So, at that age, I gave the rest of my “heart” (indeed, my very soul) to Christ and He became more than my Savior. He became my Lord.
Over the next five years as I hungered and thirsted for righteousness and grew in knowledge of the Truth of the Word, I was challenged again at 43 to give Him all of my mind…… to quit quibbling about perceived contradictions in the Word and arguing about cultural standards versus God’s. A few years later, as I felt the call to full time vocational ministry, I gave Christ all of my strength for as long as He would desire to use me. It is still a daily challenge at 65 to live into the whole-heartedness of LIFE IN CHRIST!
Addendum 9/2/2022, in response to today’s Seedbed Daily Text on “The Cure For Exhaustion” :
Wholehearted: All in. “Perfected in love” (with all of who one is). It is the antidote, the insulation, the cushioning, the remedy. It is the sustaining grace out of which Paul says:
But we have this treasure in Earthen vessels, that the greatness of the power would be from God and not from us. For we are squeezed in all things, but we are not strangled; we are harassed, but we are not condemned. We are persecuted, but we are not forsaken; We are cast down, but we are not defeated. We bear at all times in our bodies the dying of Yeshua, that the life also of Yeshua may be revealed in our bodies. For if we, the living, are delivered to death for the sake of Yeshua, so also the life of Yeshua will be revealed in this, our mortal body. Now death labors in us and life in you. Therefore, we also in whom is that one spirit of faith, as it is written: “I have believed; because of this I also have spoken”, we believe; because of this we also speak. And we know that he who raised our Lord Yeshua shall also raise us up by Yeshua and shall bring us with you to him. For everything is for your sakes, and when grace abounds, thanksgiving will abound by the many to the glory of God.
Because of this, it is not tiresome to us, for even if our external person is being destroyed, on the other hand, that which is from within is renewed day by day. For the suffering of this time, while very small and swift, prepares us great glory without limits for the eternity of eternities. For we do not rejoice in those things that are seen, but in these things that are unseen. For things seen are time related, but those things that are unseen are eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:7-9 Aramaic For Plain English – Peshitta Translation
From glory to glory…. “prepares us great glory without limits for the eternity of eternities.”