DAILY DEVOTIONAL – October 24, 2019
“Doubleheader”
Prayer: Holy God, our Maker and Master, we worship You because You are the only true God and the only One worthy of our praise. Jesus, there is no Lord or Savior besides You. We know Lord that nothing and no one in this life can save us or truly satisfy what our hearts long for. Only You are mighty to save and merciful to satisfy. By Your grace and Spirit, keep our hearts and minds from seeking or desiring anything or anyone but You. Amen.
Scripture – James 1:5-8; 14-15
5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. 6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. 15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.
Devotional – “Doubleheader”
On September 24, there was a very rare discovery in Woodbridge Virginia. While tending to her garden, a Virginia woman saw a snake. Realizing that it wasn’t a simple garden snake, she called animal control to come and take care of it. When they finally captured the reptile, everyone was shocked at what they saw: it was a two-headed copperhead snake. According to the herpetology expert interviewed in the Washington Post, two-headed snakes are a once in a lifetime find at best. This two-headed copperhead snake has only one of each internal organ like a regular snake, however, it has two fully formed heads and each head has its own brain. As you could imagine, this results in a number of issues that result in the extremely short lifespan of any two-headed snake.
Although the snake has only one stomach, both heads of the snake want to eat at the same time, so actually coordinating an attack on prey and successfully securing a meal proves very difficult. Additionally, since eating takes so much more time (presumably because the two heads fight over the one meal) the snake is vulnerable to predators and exposed for twice as long. Another problem is that each snake wants to go its own way, so even just basic movement is wrought with conflict as both heads try to control one body, which also means that the snake’s ability to quickly avoid an attack and become someone else’s dinner is greatly compromised. Not only eating, but drinking water now becomes a life and death situation as there is always the risk of one of the heads being dragged down and drowned in the water while the other is drinking.
It’s often said that “two heads are better than one.” That may be true when it comes to brainstorming with other people, but when it comes to our spiritual life and faith, having two-heads or two-minds is a dangerous cocktail.
Although finding a two-headed copperhead snake may be extremely rare, all of us are intimately familiar with the challenges of living with two heads; the challenges of being double-minded. Every human being is born into this world flawed and broken and sinful. Our minds are corrupt from day one. As Scripture says in Psalm 51:5, “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” Despite what the unbelieving world would have us believe, we are not inherently good in our nature as humans. The fact that every society in the history of the world has had to make and enforce laws against things like stealing and murder and adultery proves we know that the desires of our hearts and the thoughts that we by nature have are corrupt and in need of saving. If we as a society and a humanity truly believed Charles Darwin and that the ultimate truth about humanity is that we are nothing more than animals whose existence is boiled down to nothing more than the survival of the fittest, then we would have no such laws against stealing and murder. But we do know in our conscience that our minds are desperately wicked and in need of saving.
The Good News that the Bible brings to us is that by God’s grace and through faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God who was crucified for our sins, we have been made new. As it says in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come.” And how are we forgiven and healed and made new? It is in the waters of baptism that our old self is drowned and put to death and where God raises us up from those waters regenerated as a new creation in Christ. As we are told in Scripture in Romans 6, “All of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”
We have no doubt been made new in the eyes of God and have been declared to be righteous by faith in Jesus who lived perfectly in thought, word and deed on our behalf. Of course, even as those who have been cleansed and saved in baptism, we know that although we have been made new in the eyes and judgement of God, we still contend with our old self. As we await the full consummation of our salvation when we realize physically and entirely the new creation that God has already made us to be in Christ, we still wrestle against the sinful desires and thoughts that our human nature retains. This is what James is talking about and warning against when he says in our text for today, “Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.”
James tells us in no uncertain terms that we cannot be double-minded as Christians; as people who have been so blessed by God to have His truth revealed to us and who have received the very Spirit of God in our baptism. As James also said in our text for today, to live double minded is to be unstable and risk harm to ourselves. As we live out the rest of our days in this life we have at the same time been made a new creation in Christ and still have that sinful human nature that wrestles for control again. As people of faith who are called to be holy, we cannot live double minded. We will fair no better than a two-headed copperhead. God has given us His Spirit which works to convict our heart when we are tempted to sin and He has given us His Word that teaches us and equips us to live a righteous life of faithful obedience and God has also given us His free forgiveness and grace in Christ when we still sin and give into our own desires. But we should never take that grace and forgiveness for granted. As James instructs us, we should always strive to be faithful by trusting that God knows better than we do and is able to provide eternally more for our happiness and joy when we listen to Him instead of our own corrupt thoughts and desires. God has promised to always provide a way out of temptation and has given us the Spirit of His Son Jesus before whom the Devil flees and is terrified.
There is no grey area. It’s either follow Jesus and live, or follow our own thoughts and desires and risk extinction just like the two-headed copperhead. As Jesus taught in His Sermon on the Mount, “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other.” (Matthew 6:24).
We must strive to be single minded in our dedication and devotion. That means we can’t live for ourselves and for Jesus. We cannot live for the world or anyone else and for Jesus. Christ calls us to be holy as He is holy, but Christ also knows we will fail and stumble and sin until the Day we inherit the eternal life Christ has purchased for us; and that’s why Christ willingly submitted Himself to death on a sinner’s cross. Christ has paid the price for the sins our thoughts cause us to commit, and it is precisely that amazing love and grace that should motivate us to strive in every way possible to live single-mindedly for Jesus.
As Christ said in no uncertain terms in John 15:5, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” Believe wholeheartedly and single-mindedly in Jesus my friends, and remember that God has forgiven yesterday, is with you today and has already taken care of tomorrow. Amen.
