Undivided Devotion

by Larry Purvis

Have you ever felt like you were walking a tightrope between trusting God and clinging to something else? You believe in Jesus, but when life presses in, your trust is tested, and you realize you’ve placed your hope in something other than Him. Maybe it’s security, success, relationships, or comfort. You say you love God, but your heart is pulled in different directions. This isn’t a new struggle—it’s as old as the story of Israel in 2 Kings 17.

To understand what’s happening in 2 Kings 17, we need to grasp the larger picture. Israel was a people chosen by God, set apart to reflect His holiness and to worship Him alone. From the beginning, God had made it clear: “You shall have no other gods before me.” But Israel repeatedly turned from Him. They pursued the gods of the nations around them, believing that Baal, Asherah, and other deities could give them what they wanted—fertile land, prosperity, and protection. Over and over, God sent prophets to warn and call them back to Himself, but they refused to listen. Finally, judgment came. The Assyrians invaded, captured Israel, and scattered the people across foreign lands, replacing them with outsiders who knew nothing of Yahweh.

Then something fascinating happened. The new inhabitants of Israel faced disaster—wild lions roamed the land, attacking them. In their fear, they assumed they had offended the “god of the land.” So, they asked the king of Assyria for help, and his solution was pragmatic—send back an exiled Israelite priest to teach them how to worship Yahweh. But instead of true worship, what followed was a tragic compromise. The people learned about Yahweh and feared Him to a degree but never fully abandoned their old gods. They tried to blend devotion to Yahweh with the idolatry they had always known. They feared the Lord yet continued serving their carved images. Their worship was divided.

And isn’t that precisely what we do? We profess faith in Jesus, yet our hearts remain tied to things that have no power to save. We try to balance Jesus with our careers, reputations, and comfort. We want enough of God to feel safe, but not so much that it costs us everything. We acknowledge Him, but we still serve our idols. We think we can manage both, but divided worship always leads to exhaustion, frustration, and spiritual deadness.

So, what happens when we recognize that our hearts are divided? What do we do when the Holy Spirit convicts us that we’ve been fearing the Lord while still serving idols?

First, we must confess. True worship begins with repentance—an honest admission that we have been trusting in something other than God. Like Israel, we need to hear the warnings of Scripture and allow them to penetrate our hearts. We need to acknowledge that money won’t save us, relationships won’t complete us, success won’t satisfy us, and control is an illusion.

Second, we must turn from our idols. Repentance isn’t just acknowledging our sin—it’s turning away from it. In the Old Testament, when kings led Israel in revival, they didn’t just acknowledge idolatry—they tore down the high places, smashed the altars, and burned the idols. We must do the same in our hearts. What does that look like? It may mean radically changing how we spend our time, how we handle our finances, how we seek approval. It means cutting off the things that pull us away from full devotion to Christ.

Third, we must replace our idols with Jesus. Simply removing an idol isn’t enough—another will just replace it unless Christ fills that space. What we need is to see Him for who He is—our true security, our ultimate joy, our everlasting peace. Jesus didn’t come to be an accessory to our lives; He came to be our life. He took on our sin, bore our idolatry on the cross, and rose again to free us. When we turn to Him fully, we find the rest our souls were made for.

The invitation is before us. We don’t have to live in the exhausting tension of divided worship. Jesus is enough. He alone is worthy of our complete devotion. Let’s not be like the people of 2 Kings 17, fearing God yet clinging to our idols. Let’s confess, turn, and fix our eyes fully on Jesus, the only One who can truly satisfy our hearts.