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Double Double Mindedness Mindedness

“A double-minded person is unstable in all he does (Jas 1:8).”
If the boat is setting sail, you can’t stand long with one foot on deck and the other on the dock. On or
off.
This principle holds throughout life.
Elijah chided Israel: “How long are you going to jump back and forth between two opinions? If
Yahweh is God, serve him; if Ba‘al is God, serve him.” Amazing that the prophet should counsel
allegiance to a false deity. But he was neither the first nor the last to do so. Joshua had challenged, “If it is
disagreeable for you to serve Yahweh, then choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether
the gods your fathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell; but
as for me and my house, we will serve Yahweh.” The glorified lord Jesus would later say, “I wish you
were either hot or cold.”
In or out. On or off. Going or staying.
Double-mindedness is deadly. A wavering soul is weedy soil. “No one can serve two masters. 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 both God and money.” Adultery is double-mindedness with one’s wife.
We can’t do everything, be everything, have everything, go everywhere. Life is choice. Once we
select it is best to jump whole-hog into what we choose: “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all
your might; for there is no activity or planning or knowledge or wisdom in she

’ôl where you are going
(Eccl 9:10).” Now or never. “We must work the works of him who sent me as long as it is day; night is
coming when no one can work (Jn 9:4).”
Whole-heartedness is the path to commendation: “Before Josiah there was no king like him who
turned to Yahweh with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might, nor did any like him arise
after him.” Whole-heartedness is the way to find God: “You will seek me and find when you search for
me with all your heart (Jer 29:13).”
Let us live whole-heartedly for the god, the spouse, the job, the organizations we choose. But choose
with care—for once we make our choices, our choices make us.