DOUBLE-MINDEDNESS

WE ALL have AM and FM on our radios. Those are two different frequencies. There is no such thing as “AM-FMish.” Each frequency is separate and distinct. When riding in the car, you can only listen to one or the other. You can’t have both at the same time, even though both are there. We come to church for the “Heavenly Broadcast Network.” We leave church for the “Flesh Broadcast Network.” Flipping frequencies like this is double-mindedness.223

[Worldliness, Concept of]

MOST of us are double-minded and attempt to think two ways at the same time. We come to church for the wisdom from above. We go back out of church and get the wisdom from below and we try to mix them.

If a woman is making stew for her family, she’ll probably put in some meat, potatoes, and some seasoning. However, if she decides to add just a tad of arsenic—just a little bit to “spice it up,” that cook will have just killed her family. Attempting to integrate two contradictory realities doesn’t work.224

James 1:6–8

YOU CANNOT mix unleaded and diesel fuel and still think you’re going somewhere. The moment you introduce diesel and unleaded into the same “unleaded-only” engine, you have canceled the unleaded by the fact of diesel. Just because it looks like gas doesn’t mean it is going to help you. What we do as Christians is we come to church to get unleaded, then on Monday go to the world and get diesel and wonder why we’re only chugging along.225

[Worldliness, Concept of]

1 John 2:15–16

THE FIRST time I rode a horse, I figured I’d watched enough cowboy pictures to know how to do it. So I jumped up on the horse and said, “Giddyup.” The horse would take two steps forward, then back up three steps. I assumed I had a crazy horse. In fact, I told the attendant that I needed another horse. He let me know that my horse was fine, but that he needed another rider.

I didn’t understand the problem with my riding. I was making all of the sounds that I’d always heard on TV and kicking him like I’d seen on TV. The attendant told me that all those sounds and kicking were fine but wouldn’t work at the same time that I was pulling back on the reins. The horse was thoroughly confused. He didn’t know whether I wanted him to go forward or step backward. Many of us are going two steps forward and three steps back and we wonder why we’re not making progress.226

AN APPLE A day keeps the doctor away. But I don’t like apples. They tell me apples are very nutritious. I just don’t like them—except when I go to the Texas State Fair. At the fair, I get candied apples. They take the apple and they dip it in liquid sugar. Then, me and apples, we are all right. The problem is that the way the apples have been prepared, the nutritional value has been destroyed. By mixing the apples with the sugar, things are now kind of messed up. The apples will hurt me now, not help me. When you mix human wisdom with divine wisdom, you cancel divine wisdom. All you have is human wisdom. That’s what the Bible calls being double-minded—being secular and sacred at the same time.227

[Wisdom]

Col. 2:8; James 1:6–8