Double minded people.

Jas 4:8 Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.

Is this true? It has to be, doesn't it? If we draw nigh to God and he will draw nigh to us.  We can't get close to God without His getting close to us, it's impossible.  That's not all the verse says though. We are told to CLEANSE our hands. We are told PURIFY our hearts.  We are called sinners and double minded. 

The truth is so blatant, so real right there for us to see.

We want to be sinners but we want God at the same time. We are at WAR with ourselves! We fight against ourselves and we do this because we all too often choose sin when we want God and we can't have both.

How many people have altered God to fit their desires so they don't have to feel the guilt that accompanies their choosing sin? They change God's very nature and tell themselves that God accepts their sins and doesn't mind them, they can keep on enjoying their sins because hey, God understands that it's too hard for them to stop sinning.  Long gone is the remorse for sin, the true remorse that convicts our hearts of its evil. Long gone are a lot of sins because we've changed them. WE HAVE CHANGED SIN! We have taken sin and we have labeled it GOOD.  This didn't happen overnight, it was a very gradual progression, a subtle changing. The ground work was laid long ago and today we have SO many acceptable sins it's all but impossible for a person not to sin.  You say sinning in ignorance is okay?  I won't argue with you. What I will say is that if you have a single chance to recognize sin for its evil and you turn a blind eye to that chance so you can continue in sin, you are no longer ignorant.  Choosing to be purposefully ignorant is NO excuse, none.

People have stopped caring about sin in so many forms. People have labeled the real sinners as those who recognize sin and speak out against it.  People call the sin revealers hateful, and evil. People want ALL things accepted, all things.  They've made the mistake of equating accepting all things with accepting all people while not recognizing all things are not acceptable.  They believe if we do NOT accept the things that people do- we are in effect- not accepting them, and this is far from the truth.  We've TAKEN THINGS and labeled them an integral part of us, our make-up, our dna, our genes, we were born this way and that way.  We are born with a desire for something and so it has to be acceptable because we were born that way.  What we've failed to realize is we are ALL born with the ability to sin, we are all born with that propensity towards letting temptation become conceived in us.  One person's propensity doesn't have to be another's.  If your propensity is to steal and you have war with that desire you've had since you were little- as long as you can remember, does that mean because it is a part of you it needs to be accepted?

We have CHANGED SIN!  We have forgotten we are but creatures in need of recognizing our need to be saved from all sin through Jesus Christ our Lord, our Savior.  Instead we desire acceptance of all the sins we now call genetically given to us, no matter what they are!  If you come from a long line of prideful people and one of those prideful people had a child they adopted out to strangers and that adopted child still grew up very prideful because it was in the genetic makeup, does that mean their prideful trait should be excused? Yes, I'm talking about PRIDE here, because pride is a very deadly sin!  Many people cling to their pride holding fast to it as a badge of honor, they say it's not one of those other nasty sins. It is a nasty sin, a very nasty sin- only we have changed it to be considered something good.

No matter what propensity you have towards the various sins in existence, not a single sin becomes acceptable simply because we can't help ourselves, we were born this way.  If you were born with the propensity towards several sinning ways and you indulge in them all and tell yourself it's fine because you were made this way, then you are LYING to yourself in a very deadly way. 

Isn't it possible we could say to all our sinful desires that we were born to desire that particular sin? We could, couldn't we.  We do! We do it all the time. Yet the person born with the desire to murder is deemed unacceptable while the person born with the desire to steal is a bit more acceptable, and the person born with the desire to covet is accepted without a qualm.  We've taken our sins and labeled them ACCEPTABLE or UNACCEPTABLE.  We've excused so many sins rather than confessed and repented of them.

At what point do we say someone is born with a propensity to a certain sin rather than they just sinned on the spur of the moment and really didn't desire to do so. Can you sin without a desire to do so? Can you sin without choosing to sin?

'Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.'

Lord, please help us double minded people! Help us, purify us, teach us to purify our hearts, to cleanse our hands! Please Lord, we don’t want to call any sin in is good, no matter the sin's origin in us.  Sometimes, Lord, we feel that our whole life is one of sin and desiring sin, and we know YOU came to save us from our sins! Save us LORD, help us! Heal us! Draw us closer to YOU! Be in us what we cannot be without You! Forgive us! Forgive us now for every single sin in us! Forgive us, Lord and help us look to YOU who are sinless- for our HOPE, not to ourselves where no hope lives. You are our HOPE, You are our REDEEMER!

All in YOUR LOVE, now and forever!!!!!!!

In Your name heavenly redeemer, Jesus Christ our Lord, our Savior, our High Priest, our King!