July 15, 2001
7So humble yourselves before God. Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you. 8Draw close to God, and God will draw close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, you hypocrites. 9Let there be tears for the wrong things you have done.
Let there be sorrow and deep grief. Let there be sadness instead of laughter, and gloom instead of joy.
10When you bow down before the Lord and admit your dependence on him, he will lift you up and give you honor. 11Don¡¦t speak evil against each other, my dear brothers and sisters. If you criticize each other and condemn each other, then you are criticizing and condemning God¡¦s law. But you are not a judge who can decide whether the law is right or wrong. Your job is to obey it. 12God alone, who made the law, can rightly judge among us. He alone has the power to save or to destroy. So what right do you have to condemn your neighbor? James 4:7-12 (New Living Translation)
I broke my own rule again! For years I have been swearing-off the talk shows, call-in shows, and such. The problem is, you get so mad over the foolishness. Then, I did it again ¡V I tuned-in while driving to Greensboro. The conversation went something like this:
Caller: Hi, This is Mike. Why is it some people can¡¦t keep from sinning?
Host: Mike, what do you mean some people?
Caller: Well, I¡¦m a Christian.
Host: Do you mean, Mike, that you don¡¦t sin?
Caller: I¡¦m not a Christian like most people you find in the world today; I do what the Bible says.
Host: Mike, when¡¦s the last time you did sin?
Caller: Nine years ago.
I wanted to leap into the radio and smack Mike around a bit!
James had some strong words for the dear church folk about their actions and attitudes. The words sting just as harshly today (and rightfully so). Perhaps the most stinging rebuke is what the radio call-in show host finally said to Mike:
Mike, the Bible says that if we say we have no sin,
the truth isn¡¦t in is¡Kand we lie .
Mike, to say you haven¡¦t sinned makes you a hypocrite. (At that point I held off slapping Mike around¡K.he¡¦d gotten what was coming to him.)
Hypocrisy, or spiritual schizophrenia allows for judging others, while not acknowledging ¡V or even seeing ¡V your own faults.
Jesus¡¦ sense of humor put it this way, You are some case ¡V hunting specks in your brother¡¦s eye, when you got a telephone pole between your own eyelashes. (Matthew 7.3).
Hypocrisy is what King James calls doubleminded. In the ancient language of the Bible, it is literally, two-breaths, or what we would call, speaking out of both sides of your mouth. It¡¦s what the politician did on the floor of the Senate one day during the debate on allowing alcohol to be sold¡K
"You asked me how I feel about whiskey. Well, here¡¦s how I stand on the question. If when you say whiskey you mean that Devil¡¦s brew, the poison spirit, the bloody monster that defiles innocence, dethrones reason, destroys the home, creates misery and poverty, yes, literally takes bread from the mouths of little children; if you mean the evil drink that topples the Christian man from the pinnacle of righteousness and gracious living and causes him to descend to the pit of degradation, despair, shame, and helplessness, then I am certainly against it with all my heart.
"But if, when you say whiskey, you mean the oil of conversation, the philosophic wine, the ale consumed when good fellows get together, that puts a song in their hearts and laughter on their lips, the warm glow of contentment in their eyes; if you mean Christmas cheer; if you mean the stimulating drink that puts the spring in an old man¡¦s footsteps on a frosty morning; if you mean the drink whose sale puts, I¡¦m told, millions of dollars into our treasury which are used to provide tender care for our little crippled children, or blind or deaf or dumb, our pitifully aged, and our infirm, to build highways and hospitals and schools, then I am certainly in favor of it. This is my stand, and I will not compromise." Maybe he was running for president.
Consider the following definition of doublemindedness:
An attempt to follow two opposite and antagonistic
courses of action at the same time.
Doublemindedness, or hypocrisy is playing both sides of the fence. It is trying to be a different person, according to the benefit you can get out of changing you, so your environment will change for you. It is schizophrenic!
And there are many spiritual schizophrenics running around today ¡V always have been. You have heard it before. On Sunday, there is the sweet smile, spiritual-sounding talk, and lots of brother and sister talk.
By Monday morning at rush hour the talk has changed into unrestrained expletives, and the behavior is more like Ghengis Khan in an SUV, passing or running over anything in the way.
By the time the spiritual schizophrenic gets to work he or she is in full worldly mode. You would never know the Spirit of Christ lives in that body. What a modulation! What a Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde transformation. What a shame on the name of Christ.
Listen to this quote from Christian author, J.I. Packer:
Along with much bad thinking that has come down to us from the last four hundred years, goes split living. ... People who live compartmentalized [schizophrenic] lives worship God and go to church and do their "religious" bit on Sundays; then they switch that off and pursue their professions, weekday work, weekend hobbies, and all their relationships as though these were matters entirely separate from their Christian commitment.
They don¡¦t even try to see their lives as a whole in terms of God and his Word. Instead they slip into their religious compartment on Sundays and their secular compartment of the other days of the week and allow no communication between the two.
Somewhere in the shuffle the idea of congruity has been lost. To be a person of integrity, spiritual integrity included, means you are the same person any day of the week, with any person, no matter the circumstances. You tell the truth, live the truth, welcome the truth. Nothing is relative to circumstances ¡V everything is relative to what Christ said, and did for us, and the way HE calls us to live.
Calvin Miller is a well-respected Christian pastor, author and seminary professor. He shares about his brush with the spiritually-schizophrenic in his own family:
In 1947, two events crowded my young existentialism: in the same year I sang choruses and made a Jesus flannel-graph board in my Wesleyan Methodist VBS class, my grandmother, who lived with us, lost her mind--at that time, I made no connection between chorus singing and the losing of one¡¦s mind; later in a Baptist church, I became used to living with schizophrenics!
One of the things Grandma did as a result of losing her mind was that she became possessive and began to steal things and stick them in her trunk and cry, Mine!
Coming home from the little Wesleyan Bible school with my flannel-graph Jesus, I encountered my first spiritual crisis. Grandma stole my flannel-graph Jesus and put him in her trunk. I couldn¡¦t understand why she would get so possessive with Jesus. Later, in seminary, I would get used to students hiding Jesus in their trunks. But then it was new to me.
I never saw my sweet, easy Jesus again. Like Habakkuk, I found that God backed away from my need. It was an omen. My beautiful flannel-backed Trinity was locked away in Grandma¡¦s trunk, that trunk buckled with two huge locks labeled GOG and MAGOG. I cried before this ugly ark of the antichrist and begged that Christ come out. But Jesus was gone, and my poor, demented Grandma wouldn¡¦t give him back.
There is no easy Jesus when it comes to the real world that schizophrenics rarely enter. Following Jesus can be confusing, and downright difficult. So what do we do?
James offered one key piece of advice that will cure spiritual schizophrenia:
7So humble yourselves before God.
Resist the Devil and he will flee from you.
There has been a lot said about resisting or fighting against the devil. Frankly, Christians are not equipped to fight against a spiritual being as strong, experienced and focused as Satan. The way we can fight, however, is to get behind our big Brother, Jesus!
Have you ever considered what happens when you humble yourself before God?
„Ñ You¡¦re doing what Jesus did. He humbled himself even unto death on the cross (Philippians 2.8).
„Ñ You¡¦re letting God fight your battles.
„Ñ You¡¦re in the perfect position to see eye to eye with your brother ¡V on your knees before a holy God, with only worship to offer from an emptied heart.
„Ñ If you spend long enough on your knees, humbled in the presence of a holy God, you will not get up from there with any signs of spiritual schizophrenia!
You will have been too honest with your Maker ¡V and his gift of Jesus¡¦ death for you ¡V and you will have been with the truth, welcoming the truth, loving the truth.
You may not get up from your knees sinless ¡V like Mike the call-in guy, but you will get up ready to live the truth. And that¡¦s what makes for a whole life ¡V a cure for spiritual schizophrenia!
