Previous verse: But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.
For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.
The NLT version of James 1:8 says that "Such people"—meaning those who waver in their faith—"should not expect to receive anything of the Lord. Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything they do." This idea of divided loyalty, or double-mindedness, really stood out to me as something to consider. I mean, we claim to follow Christ and Christ alone, of course, but how often are our minds and passions torn between Him and something else, or someone else instead?
Double-minded (my dictionary didn't have a definition for this word, so I determined my own): torn in loyalty between God and something else; not solely focused on God; claiming to love God while still clinging to something else.
Unstable~ Being double-minded makes us ineffective, unstable in our faith and in our Christian walk. We can't fully live to please God because part of us is always focused on pleasing or preserving something else. Our prayers can become distracted or noncommittal because God's rival in our lives—Satan, through whatever idol or distraction he is using—doesn't want me praying them.
What does this mean? It means we're torn between diametric rivals: God, and Satan, through the idol he's placed in our lives. How can we have stability, how can we have our feet firmly planted in faith, how can we be solid in our walk with Christ, when we're trying to bounce back and forth between the two, to hang on to both, to compromise?
Stability, a solid rock, a "sure and steadfast anchor"—these are gifts that Christ offers, and Christ alone. Nothing in this world can compare with these promises, and nothing in this world should compete for our loyalty or keep us from giving ourselves wholly to Christ. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways, so let's fix our eyes on Jesus and let nothing else get in the way.
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