A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.
-James 1:8
Again we are warned of the seriousness of doubt.
Outwardly, this passage is disheartening; it seems to human eyes that God has no mercy on people who struggle with doubt. But hold on, because their are different ways to deal with doubt, and God forgives those who repent of it. The point is that doubt cannot reign in your life, not that if it ever pokes its head, you are immediately condemned.
One of the Hebraic meanings of this word denotes a "two-spirited" person. How can someone who is after the world and then after God and then again back to chasing the world, how can this kind of man lay hold of any sort of truth?
We completely understand this concept when it comes to other sins, and yet when talking of doubt, we don't seem to grasp that the damage done by unchecked doubt is equivalent to unchecked adultery, hatred, or addiction.
Doubt, like all sin, becomes addictive and Master if left unchallenged.
Consider again James metaphor of the waves...
If a man is driven by winds and waves, he is incapable of reaching the shore even if someone were to come out to sea and rescue him; unless his addiction is dealt with, he will return to the sea. Every man is the author and finisher of his own destruction.
The promise of a husband that he will remain faithful to his wife does not make the wife faithful; it takes two to make a marriage pure. Yet this is exactly what God did! He was and is a faithful husband to an adulterous bride. (Read Hosea for an amazing illustration of this truth.)
We must reckon with the reality that devotion and division cannot cohabitate.
Outwardly, this passage is disheartening; it seems to human eyes that God has no mercy on people who struggle with doubt. But hold on, because their are different ways to deal with doubt, and God forgives those who repent of it. The point is that doubt cannot reign in your life, not that if it ever pokes its head, you are immediately condemned.
One of the Hebraic meanings of this word denotes a "two-spirited" person. How can someone who is after the world and then after God and then again back to chasing the world, how can this kind of man lay hold of any sort of truth?
We completely understand this concept when it comes to other sins, and yet when talking of doubt, we don't seem to grasp that the damage done by unchecked doubt is equivalent to unchecked adultery, hatred, or addiction.
Doubt, like all sin, becomes addictive and Master if left unchallenged.
Consider again James metaphor of the waves...
If a man is driven by winds and waves, he is incapable of reaching the shore even if someone were to come out to sea and rescue him; unless his addiction is dealt with, he will return to the sea. Every man is the author and finisher of his own destruction.
The promise of a husband that he will remain faithful to his wife does not make the wife faithful; it takes two to make a marriage pure. Yet this is exactly what God did! He was and is a faithful husband to an adulterous bride. (Read Hosea for an amazing illustration of this truth.)
We must reckon with the reality that devotion and division cannot cohabitate.
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