Girl, Read Your BibleSample

When God doesn’t have your attention, He’ll often disturb what does.

While this may not feel wonderful, it is actually a great mercy, because anything apart from Him will leave us empty and longing for more.

I’m a recovering people pleaser, and often wrestle with speaking the truth and hurting someone’s feelings. It has me divided at times. Many of us fight this. It is the battle of a double-minded man. 

As believers, we face this constantly. We want to trust Jesus with our souls, yet we tend to trust most of our control, peace, and satisfaction to things around us. We call it “balance” and we chalk it up as a good thing. But balance assumes two things are equally weighted. And in this life, nothing should get the same weight and priority as God. 

James 1:6-8 says, “The doubter is like the surging sea, driven and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord, being double-minded and unstable in all his ways” (csb). The doubter. She doesn’t trust God completely. Her soul is divided. She wants “balance” in her life, but she is living in confusion. Her soul drowns trying to serve two masters. She can’t yield to the Spirit and to sin at the same time. 

There is no balance in the kingdom of heaven. There are those with Christ and those against Him. There is no middle ground. Our situations will change, plans will be altered, and circumstances will challenge us but Christ must be the solid ground on which we stand, the anchor that holds us in the midst of the storm. 

You may not be practicing witchcraft or satanic worship, but not prioritizing your relationship with Christ is still exceptionally detrimental. Nothing is more powerful than a sold-out, single-minded, narrowly focused, kingdom-purposed saint who relies entirely on the power of Jesus. 

Someday—when our bodies die or when Jesus comes back—we will be delivered from the presence of sin. This is what we refer to as glorification. Imagine a world without sin. No more sadness, pain, or tears. No more loss, grief, or anxiety. No more hurt, anger, or confusion. Only Jesus. Only the complete satisfier, the ultimate life-giver. Games will be played without rebellion and relationships will be without jealousy, selfishness, and pretension. We will be able to enjoy all of the blessings of God without the urge to put them on His throne.

But for now, we are divided and battling. We have souls being refined toward perfection, but our bodies and our actions constantly want to drag us down into death. We are like Lazarus—raised from death to life, yet still walking out of the tomb in grave clothes. Our renewed, redeemed souls have the desires of our flesh wrapped around them, and we have to deliberately fight the agendas and motives of this present world.

We are delivered from the penalty of sin, but we still experience the power of sin. But one day we will no longer feel the presence of sin. If you understand this, then you can begin to find peace and purpose in Christ.