Clean Hands and a Pure Heart

Clean Hands:

James 4:8 (KJV) Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, sinners, and purify your hearts, double-minded people!

What does it mean to be double-minded?  The definition of double minded according to the Miriam Webster Dictionary: 1 wavering in mind : undecided, vacillating a double–minded man unstable in all his ways 2 : marked by hypocrisy : insincere.   

As you can see from the language of James in this scripture, he wasn’t talking to true believers and followers of Jesus, he was obviously talking to people who were content in their sin or people who were trying to walk on both sides of the fence; claiming to be followers of Jesus, but still hanging on to their sin and not wanting to change. Not believing that they need to change.

I’m deeply concerned in today’s world that’s where most of the churches are …they deny the value of repenting and turning away from sin and instead they “preach or tickle” the ears of their congregations with what they want to hear, therefore they’re leading them to believe that as long as they say they’re Christians, that’s all that they have to do…that they don’t need to repent and that God is going to grant them every wish or desire including wealth.

2 Timothy 4:2-5 (KJV) Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine. ³ For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; ⁴ And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. ⁵ But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.

In the New Testament scriptures, Timothy was an early Christian evangelist, the son of a Greek father and a Jewish mother, referred to by Paul as “my true son in the faith”. He was trying to follow the instructions given to him by Paul in regards to the church. Paul instructs in 1 Timothy 4:12 (KJV) Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity. We know from the scriptures and 2 books in the New Testament that Paul wrote 2 letters to Timothy in order to hold him up in the Gospel and to give him strength with instruction and advice so he could lead the church and continue evangelizing (sharing the Gospel and planting the seeds of faith). He also warned Timothy about false teachers.

There’s only one way to clean our hands and purify our hearts and that is through our faith in Jesus! His righteousness covers all of our sins: this is the only way we can stand before our Father in Heaven. There’s nothing we can do on our own to fix us! WE are sinners and even when we repent from our sins, it becomes a daily battle that we fight against the enemy and can only be won with the help of the Holy Spirit, who keeps us from repeating our sins. REPENT is turning away from sin and truly regretting with every fiber of you heart and mind that you ever partook sin. This cannot be achieved without giving your heart, mind and hands…“YOUR ALL” to our Lord and Savior who gave us “HIS ALL” Jesus the Messiah ~ Yeshua Hamashiach (Hebrew translation).

Keep in mind, that we should always be in a state of repentence and always asking forgiveness…as humans we can sin without intending to sin…we can sin by omission when we neglect to do what’s right and what Jesus told us to do in:

Matthew 22:37-40 (KJV)

Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

³⁸ This is the first and great commandment.

³⁹ And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

⁴⁰ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

We need to be recognize that when we allow the world to keep us from these two commandments, which as you see by verse 40, incorporate ALL THE LAW…we don’t have clean hands or a clean heart. WE are walking in darkness and there’s only one way out:

John 8:12 (KJV) Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.

Psalm 24 (KJV)

The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.

² For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods.

³ Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place?

⁴ He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.

⁵ He shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation.

⁶ This is the generation of them that seek him, that seek thy face, O Jacob. Selah.

⁷ Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.

⁸ Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.

⁹ Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.

¹⁰ Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory. Selah.

Pure Heart:

Proverbs 20:9 (KJV)  Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?

Matthew 5:8 (KJV) Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.

I’m now going to refer you again to Scripture found in the Book of James:

James 4:8 (KJV) Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, sinners, and purify your hearts, double-minded people!

Sadly… double-minded is the state that we’re in because we’re human! There’s only one cure: give your mind over to the Holy Spirit so that the Spirit can lead you away from indecision and onto the path of righteousness. You can’t have a relationship with Jesus and also have a relationship with sin, so you must fully surrender yourself to Him by walking away from whatever it is that is keeping you in sin. Keep in mind that even Jesus was tempted by Satan, although he never gave in, we must remember that we cannot get through a day without Satan trying to pull us into darkness! This is why we need to be “born again”, so the Holy Spirit can guide us away from the darkness and keep us in the “LIGHT”. Paul tells us in Galations 5:16-18 (KJV) This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. ¹⁷ For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. ¹⁸ But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.

I can hear some of you right now say: SEE!!! We’re not under the LAW!!! YES, we are! This is why we need to ask for forgiveness when we do inadvertently sin! We cannot continue in SIN and if we allow the Holy Spirit to Guide us we won’t continue in SIN, therefore when we’re not sinning and we’re giving our minds to Jesus, then the LAW has no power over us and it becomes a mirror for us to examine ourselves!! Everytime we sin willingly, we are the same as slapping Jesus in the face and saying that his death on the cross means nothing to us! As said many times in the New Testament: GOD FORBID!

When we decide to follow Jesus and allow the Holy Spirit to work in us, we becoming pleasing to God because we’re covered by the righteousness of Jesus Christ our Savior…therefore, our hands become clean and our hearts become pure. We will find peace unlike anything that we’ve ever known. There will be an end to double-mindedness because we’ll be sharing in the LOVE and PEACE of Christ.