James 4:8- 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
This one scripture has a lot and in a way that only James can deliver it.
Come near to God and He will come near to you. That is completely true and anyone that has a relationship with God knows just how much. He’s right there. People are constantly putting a divide between themselves and the Lord, but that’s not His fault. The other thing people do is turn their backs to the Lord so they don’t have to see Him face to face when not living for Him.
Yet He is still their “IF” we want to turn around. I would like to use the word “WHEN” but that doesn’t always happen.
Which leads to wash your hands you sinners. No not literally wash them but clean up your act. How do we do that? By dying to ourselves and obeying God.
If we die to ourselves and obey God, we are now purifying our hearts. The only one pure is the Lord.
This leads us to our title double minded. What is double minded? It’s trying to have a mind for the Lord and at the same time a mind for our worldly desires and sinful life. Is that a problem?
1 John 2:15-16 – 15 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world.
Yep, that’s a problem if you take the Word of God literal and seriously.
Our worldly thoughts drowned out God’s will for our lives. Out with the bad and in with the good needs to be one’s practice.