Two Masters, One Heart

In shadowed halls where coins clink like distant chains,  

a voice once spoke against the divided throne,  

declaring no soul can bend the knee to twins  

without fracture, without the slow rot of allegiance split.  

No one can serve two masters, He said,  

for love will curdle into hate for the rival,  

devotion sharpen into contempt for the lesser claim.

The heart is no vast kingdom with room for dual crowns;  

it is a single chamber, a narrow gate,  

where one lord enters and the other is barred.  

Choose the Eternal, and the clamor of gold grows faint,  

a beggar's whisper drowned in the thunder of grace.  

Choose the glittering hoard, and the quiet call of heaven  

fades to echo, despised as weakness, as folly.

Mammon rises like smoke from ancient altars,  

not a mere metal but a spirit that promises  

tomorrow's bread in exchange for today's soul,  

hoards shadows of security while stealing the light of trust.  

It whispers of barns bursting, of fields bought with sweat,  

of towers built to outlast the wind and the worm.  

Yet its service is bondage disguised as freedom—  

chains forged from the very abundance it bestows.

God stands opposite, not with ledgers or vaults,  

but with open hands scarred by nails,  

offering bread that never perishes,  

water that quenches beyond thirst.  

His mastery demands all, yet gives more—  

the surrender of self for the gift of true self,  

the laying down of anxious striving  

for the rest found in lilies clothed by divine thought.

The two paths diverge at the soul's crossroads:  

one paved with the rust of accumulated fears,  

the other with the footprints of faith walking on water.  

To cling to both is to court madness—  

the heart pulled taut between heaven's pull and earth's drag,  

love poisoned by resentment, devotion eroded by disdain.  

The divided man walks lame, half-stepping toward light,  

half-dragging toward darkness, never arriving whole.

Yet the invitation remains gentle as dawn:  

forsake the false lord whose treasury is moth-eaten,  

whose promises crumble like dry leaves.  

Turn wholly to the One who numbers the stars  

and knows the sparrow's fall,  

who clothes the grass today and kindles it tomorrow.  

In single-hearted service lies the paradox of liberty—  

to lose life for His sake is to find it eternal,  

to despise mammon's yoke is to wear the easy burden of love.

Let the soul choose once, decisively,  

not in fleeting resolve but in daily surrender,  

hating what binds, loving what frees,  

devoted to the King who reigns not by force of wealth  

but by the power of poured-out blood.  

For in that choice the fractured heart is mended,  

the divided throne unified,  

and the pilgrim walks unburdened,  

eyes fixed on treasures no thief can touch,  

no rust corrupt, no end consume.