Purify Your Hearts

Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.
Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.
Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.
[James 4:7-10 NKJV]

In encouraging us to “purify our hearts”, the apostle James reveals for us the condition we are in that requires the purifying. He tells us that it is double-mindedness that causes us to be distanced from God.

What then is double-minded? We talk of ‘being in two minds’ about something when we cannot decide which way to turn, but this is more than indecision, it is about refusing to choose and trying to accommodate two opposing beliefs. My way or God’s way. So often, though we are committed to God, we mentally adjust His word to fit with our own agendas.

Jeremiah warns us the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” [Jeremiah 17:9]. That deceit is another way of saying double-minded.

The answer, we can see, is to be single-minded in hearing from the Holy Spirit so that our minds are bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.
[Philippians 2:5-8 NKJV]

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“Purify My Heart” - Jeremy Riddle

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OSWALD CHAMBERS - RUN TODAY’S RACE
Monday 1st June 2020
We must strenuously cast our ways and our burdens on Him and wait for Him in all haphazard and topsy-turvy moments

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