He writes to depict the essence, reasons and realities of life: how people lived it, why and how people are living it, and why and how people want to live it, and the lessons of life for us to reason. His quotable words give reasons to ponder. – https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B00J6IPPP2/about
I must be transparent and vulnerable. For many years of my life I struggled with double-mindedness. I didn’t intend to be insincere, though it was I later learned.
My double-mindedness birthed itself from my insecurities which crippled my faculties as I desperately wanted to be perfect to avoid the continuous reminder that I was a mess, failure, not-good-enough, poor, not-manly-enough, and not-sexy-enough.
God’s, and our enemy, the devil, along with our own learned narrations of our lives are merciless ‘accusers of the brethren’ (Revelation 12 vs 10).
God had to break me in order to snap the chains in my mind that pursued internalised learned perfectionist judgement, bring me acceptance of the bitter-sweet truth of reality, and give me the paraklesis- greek: courageous empathy to overcome- for myself by relying on Jesus’ strength as God walked me out of my neuro-programmed ‘valley of death’ (Psalm 23 vs 4) into the light of Himself (1 Peter 2 vs 9) to begin shaping me to be who He says that I am.
I was so twisted in myself that I aimed at perfectionism. I hoped that if I could be perfect I could avoid judgement, but knew it was only a matter of time and circumstance before I’d fail. Then, I’d punish myself with reckless living as some form of validation that I deserve abuse. I’d abuse myself the mostest as an act of control, and defiance; a performance-art statement saying, “You think the worst of me, let me show you how bad I can be.”
God had His work cut out with me. 🤣
“The problem is not [fully] the misunderstanding we have, but the understanding we have missed. We must come to a certain understanding; to understand understanding. We need to understand understanding, and we must understand with understanding!”- Ernest Agyemang Yeboah
[] emphasis added.
As, I have been lovingly taught by God to unlearn my misunderstanding, and learn to understand as God sees (as best as humans can), fortunately I am not alone in the journey to understand with understanding.
Neither are you. 🤣
2 Corinthians is a spectacular account of how lack of understanding birthed double-mindedness creating severe dissent in the church.
It helps us to grasp the gravity of 2 Corinthians 1 by first defining what double-mindedness is.
By default, double-mindedness is insincere as it fails to examine dream-like thinking/ imagined reality from actual reality. In turn the insincerity becomes hypocrisy as we are easily swayed by what imprints onto our internalised bias validating itself. Today, we are pro this because it fits our mood/emotions/friend group/bank balance /power-lust. Tomorrow we change as it isn’t the popular or self-beneficiary trend any longer.
Paul draws us into a deeply personal experience, using it to teach us about the difference between God and impressionable humanism.
2 Corinthians 1 vs 17-21 is so raw that I feel the pain and frustration of Paul correcting the double-mindedness of the people in Corinth.
* Can you remember being frustrated with others who couldn’t decide about something?
* Can you remember being irritated with yourself because you couldn’t make a decision?
* How did you react?
* What steps have you taken to deal with indecision, misunderstanding, and lack of conviction?
2 Corinthians 1 vs 19-20, are particularly what I believe The Holy Spirit is drawing us into being decided about with Godly understanding, and resolutely convicted about.
2 Corinthians 1 vs 19-20: “For Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was preached among you by Silas, Timothy, and myself, is not one who is “Yes” and “No.” On the contrary, he is God’s “Yes”; for it is he who is the “Yes” to all of God’s promises. This is why through Jesus Christ our “Amen” is said to the glory of God.”
What Paul is teaching us, in essence is that God wanted us to be in a relationship with Himself. We failed that relationship, so God in His INCREDIBLE goodness fixed the mess by coming as Jesus to destroy everything that gets in the way of our ability to have a relationship with Himself. God is not dilly-dallying. He wants us, so He made THE WAY possible. God is sure. God is resolute. God is determined.
God is not double-minded!!!
God has, freely, made it possible to get to know Him so that we can be saved by Him as He loves us into wholeness as we were always supposed to be.
SADLY, it is our egoic self-righteous misunderstanding and lack of understanding that stops us from living in the wonderful gift of God’s Nature which is sure. His Assurance is what allows us to become surely convicted into resoluteness in our faith.
BUT, even in our double-mindedness God offers a solution to grow us into assurance through relationship with Himself. James 1 vs 5-8 tells us, “Ask God and He will help us become sure.”
This alert about being double-minded by not addressing the root causes by ‘working out our faith with fear and trembling’ (Philippians 2 vs 12-13) is cleanly, starkly, and with tough-love posed by Paul in the first letter to Corinth in 1 Corinthians 4 vs 21.
We see this magnificently expressed by Messiah King Jesus in his rebuke of the double-mindedness of the Pharisees in Matthew 23 vs 25-28. After years of kindness, forgiveness, and mercy, correction after correction the Pharisees still misrepresented God.
And, let’s get really honest, we can be like the Pharisees who represent as holy but internally are bitterly judgemental covering up our own inadequacies with a sharply pointed finger, constantly being “Yes” and “No”. We blame God when we don’t see the Holy Bible come alive in our lives, yet fail to examine ourselves to see what misunderstanding and faulty understanding lies within ourselves. Right?
To quote, “To be double-minded means accepting two sets of contrasting beliefs. As believers, we are called to live in the world, but not of it. What does that mean and how can we be sure the false ideas of this world are not diluting the truth of God in our beliefs?” – https://www.belovedwomen.org/5-signs-you-may-be-double-minded/
SO HOW DO WE EXAMINE IF WE ARE OUTSIDE-CLEAN YET INSIDE-DIRTY DOUBLE-MINDED?
#1 You Doubt God– believe in God but don’t believe God. Usually, when we haven’t given up ‘my truth’ for God’s Truth.
#2 You are Unstable and Confused– when we haven’t studied God’s Word enough from accurate Bible Teaching leaving us emotionally easily influenced because we aren’t clear why we believe what we believe. Excellent Christian Apologetics helps with this. I recommend Dr. Craig Lane (Reasonable Faith) – https://www.reasonablefaith.org/ AND Red Pen Logic with Mr B – https://m.facebook.com/profile.php/?id=100057719257394
#3 You are caught in sin– being unrepentant about our sin, character defects and stinking thinking keeps us trapped in the bias of self which limits us from seeing God’s Word truthfully. CHANGE THAT.
#4 You are diluting your faith in Christ- by not fully understanding that Jesus is the ONLY WAY for whatever reasons, AND that Jesus is for, through, and by whom we exist (John 1) it is easy to mix-n-match to suit our lack of understanding.
#5 You are in conflict with yourself– a beautiful quote sums up this truth. Socrates famously said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” God doesn’t expect us to come perfect, but HE DEFINITELY expects us to unlearn and relearn (Romans 12 vs 2).
A magnificent song written by Cory Asbury is perfectly placed. The lyrics teach us how our inadequacies can blind us from seeing our double-mindedness and how God wants us to find assurance in the fact that He sees us through the lense of His Ability to rescue, save, renew, and transform us into Christ-likeness.
#Hayibo 