Imagine the following workplace scenario and then try to see its relevance as a spiritual application.

"Rob, don't you remember that when you joined this company, you signed your employment contract and your Employee Performance Agreement? That meant you understood the expectations. We expect you to show up, be fully engaged, and give your undivided bandwidth to advancing our clean-energy mission. Anything less is unacceptable.

But here's what we've been seeing: you missed a shift last week; you've been late several times this month; and your productivity is slipping. Too many extended breaks, too much scrolling and personal messaging during work hours. Just yesterday, a customer called asking for the guy who installs traditional gas-burning systems on the side. That indicates you're operating a side hustle that directly contradicts our mission.

We're not getting your best anymore—we're getting your leftovers. Your passion and focus are tied up in your own after-hours gig, and to say the least — it's obvious here in the office. You're exhausted, disengaged, and working at a fraction of your capacity. Rob, that's a conflict of interest. It violates your contract and undermines the very mission you signed on to advance."

Too often, we think we can split our lives between God and something else. In the past, I can remember Christians denouncing politicians who tried to compartmentalize their lives by separating how they performed politically from their private lives morally. We expected them to live an integrated, whole life without any below-the-radar distractions. But what about me — the Christian? Am I trying to manage two or three compartments of my life, thinking I can keep them separate?

Here’s what Jesus said about the split life:

No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” Luke 16:13

Jesus sounded rather absolute about the matter. He stated it as emphatically as if it were one of God’s fundamental laws — like the law of gravity. If my life is split between God and something else, I am unacceptably serving God.

In secular life, you may be able to do some moonlighting and have a side hustle and prosper. You may be able to have a day job and then push yourself to earn more via an evening job. And you might get away with it and actually prosper materially. But when it comes to our spiritual life, moonlighting or having a side-gig is never acceptable to God.

Read it here: President Trump Wants to Get to Heaven

Although there may be other contributing factors, some of the early clues that a Christian is moonlighting (with divided loyalties) include: less available to assume spiritual responsibilities; ‘missing status’ is increasing in frequency; less responsive to great news over spiritual blessing; fewer fresh thoughts about Christ; frequent but suppressed guilt over a cooling love; increasingly comfortable in non-spiritual environments; etc. You can add your thoughts to this list as well.

King David prayed:

Unite my heart to fear Your Name. Psalm 86:11.

In other words, “bring together into one —one united whole — all the affections and desires of my heart so that I will be singularly focused on My God, so that everything in my life will ultimately contribute to the Glory of Your great Name.”

Is my heart united and singularly focused? Are my loyalties divided between God and something else? Is moonlighting taking more and more of my heart’s desires and sapping my energy for the Lord? Is my love and commitment to the Lord slowly withering because of my side-hustle?

The Mississippi River flows just one way, and that is south — to the Gulf of Mexico, which is a distance of 3,780 kilometres from its northern source in Minnesota. Along the way to its destination there are 250 major tributaries and as many as 7,000 streams and waterways adding to the southward flow.

Make sure all your streams, waterways, and tributaries in your Christian life flow just one way —feeding into the one ultimate river that flows to the Judgment Seat of Christ.