Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] What's one thing that you're praying and believing God for right now? Close your eyes for a moment.
[00:00:06] Now, whatever you've been praying God for, do you have a backup plan to that?
[00:00:12] If you do, I hate to tell you, but you're double minded. Let's talk about how we can get and overcome double mindedness here in this pot.
[00:00:29] God does design us to fit. He designs us to be impactful.
[00:00:36] Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Shifts in Ladders. This is Ryan Robinson. If you haven't yet subscribe to this podcast, subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify. If you know somebody, share this with them. Because I think double mindedness, this particular topic in the Book of James is actually one that we really, I think we need to kind of dive in a little bit. I've been getting to some of this in previous podcasts, but I think it's really critical and crucial at this point in time as we're going to go through the Book of James.
[00:01:15] It is one not saying the Bible doesn't have practical circumstances and situations. And it, it does everywhere. Proverbs, Psalms, Jesus is teaching at the root and the core of all of it really.
[00:01:30] But the Book of James has some things that talks about how we deal with one another, not just our relationship to God, but how do we work with one another, how do we apply God's word actively in our relationships with our neighbor.
[00:01:49] I think that's again super important. But in any, in any rate, in any case, starting off with double mindedness, now some of the examples that we gave about double mindedness in the Bible here, the example in James chapter one, verse seven and eight is like a man who is tossed back and forth on waves. So he's waving, he can't make a decision. He's not decisive, he's not anchored or she's not anchored in what they believe God can do. And what happens a lot of times is that we get so we don't trust God enough really at the root of it.
[00:02:34] Because what we're doing is we're having a backup plan to the thing that we prayed.
[00:02:39] How many times have we said, if God doesn't come through, I got this plan right here.
[00:02:47] I'm a wait.
[00:02:50] Many of us have.
[00:02:51] And what that says is we've doubted God's goodness. And the only person that can know that they've said that is you.
[00:03:00] I'm going to tell on myself, I've done it.
[00:03:03] It's been, it's been challenging because a lot of times your ideas of what you Think your life could be may not be what's best for you.
[00:03:16] Bible says that God can do exceedingly and abundantly. Above all that we can ask, think or imagine. So if you're imagining big, God has to one up what you're imagining and that's good news.
[00:03:33] What you have imagined for yourself. God says I can exceed what your mind has imagined for you.
[00:03:43] And why is that? He doesn't want you getting the credit.
[00:03:46] He doesn't want you getting the credit because if you thought yourself and thought a better life for you, you would say that you did it.
[00:03:55] But last time I checked, God is a God who will get glory for himself and he will do it and bless you so at your expense so that you can point to God and say, I did not do this myself, but God himself did this. And the only way in this case is that you can't be double minded when you ask.
[00:04:19] There are some challenges and again I want to really get to some solutions here when it comes to double mindedness because you could live your whole life that way where you say yes but you really meant no. You know, we've done that with commitments. I'm just telling on myself sometimes we've over committed and we've committed to something that our heart really wasn't in and we have to almost show up just because we said it, but we really didn't mean it.
[00:04:53] That's a perfect example of double mindedness. You can think about, apply wherever you want to for your own life, but you have to recognize that we all struggle with it, but there are people that struggle with it further and deeper when it comes to the things of God. Okay, so I'm going to pull up a couple notes here. I want to talk about it. All right, so we talked about this, but the great thing is there's good news on how to overcome double mindedness. And I want to say this before we get into it. The last verse in verse eight says a double minded man is unstable in all of his ways.
[00:05:40] This isn't just talking about a small compartment that oh, I'm just double minded in my money or I'm double minded in my relationships, or I'm double minded in other in my job or my occupation or whatever. It's in everything.
[00:05:56] If you don't have clarity in one space of your life, you won't have clarity anywhere else. We're talking about a spiritual clarity that creates a level of decisiveness and clarity that you just know, I'm going left, I'm going right. Okay, that in Itself is a gift. Because most of the time we get stuck. We get stuck in the middle and we don't know if we need to make this decision or that kind of decision over here. And we get paralyzed by analysis, paralysis because we want to be right.
[00:06:35] And most of the time, because we want to be right, we don't make a decision at all. And time is continuing to pass.
[00:06:42] So whether we make a decision, whether it's the right decision or not, the Bible also says that he will work everything out for our good. It may not be good to you, it may suck and it may hurt, but God will not. A friend of mine says this. Nothing is wasted when God is involved, okay? Nothing is. Excuse me, nothing is wasted when God is involved. Your good decisions, your bad decisions, your poor relationships, your great relationships. God doesn't waste anything. He is like the best lean practitioner because nothing's wasted. But what we do, what we would waste, is our time being double minded. So how can we overcome double mindedness in our season? Okay, first things first. We have to fully commit and trust God. I've talked about this again several times, but everything comes back to trusting in God and not in ourselves. We're not that smart. We don't know the beginning from the end. We don't know ourselves as well as we think we do. We don't know how we would respond when certain things come our way.
[00:08:06] It's not just blessings that God gives us. There's actually blessings in the fact that God has kept things from us that we will never know.
[00:08:15] There are circumstances that you see on tv. That man, if that came to my front door, I don't know how I would handle it.
[00:08:22] But praise be to God that he keeps some of these things away and protects us in ways that we cannot have not or will ever see. There's something I learned in church when I was young. They said, you know, we asked that we've prayed that God protect us on the highways and byways. If we're looking at people who have driven past us at times, man, listen, if they've gotten real close to your bumper, that could have been an angel. Being that extra bumper between you and that car behind you or you and that car in front of you, or to your left or to your right, we don't know what God has kept us from.
[00:09:06] But praise be to God that he's kept us from things that we will never know. All right, the other piece of this, and. And it is a scripture from Romans chapter 12.
[00:09:19] It says, Be ye sorry. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is our reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of the mind, that you may prove that good, acceptable and perfect will of God. That's Romans, chapter 12, verses 1 through 2. Now, why is this important to renew your mind daily?
[00:09:52] Well, because our mind is locked in on. On worldly circumstances. Okay? If you knew everything there was to know, you would not be reading books. You wouldn't be doing all the research to find out what you need to do.
[00:10:08] But just as we said in the beginning verses of chapter one, ask for wisdom.
[00:10:16] Ask God for the wisdom.
[00:10:19] And why is the wisdom? What is wisdom? Wisdom is knowledge properly applied.
[00:10:25] And only God can give you that because there's principles that govern this world that only God knows.
[00:10:32] And only God can give you that insight on how to manage it. Okay? We talk about Solomon, the wisest man who have ever lived.
[00:10:45] And in his wisdom, he was able to speak to world leaders. Manage this.
[00:10:55] The wealth of Israel. Grow it to unsurmountable amounts of fame for it. Not just for himself, but for the country itself. And depicting that God is indeed with Israel.
[00:11:13] And sometimes people just ain't going to believe until they actually see some material things show up. Let's keep it 100. People don't know that you're blessed per se unless you show up blessed with something. Right?
[00:11:28] But a lot of it, and most of the time we think it's hard work that does it. It really isn't. It's actually wisdom.
[00:11:34] When God gives you the wisdom, he gives you the knowledge on how to apply those principles to a thing.
[00:11:42] And you can't do it unless you have your mind renewed. But you cannot actually get your mind renewed if you don't believe that God is the source. So you cannot. You might be missing wisdom nuggets in your life because you don't trust God enough. You may trust God in certain areas, but there's areas of our life that we have not fully committed and submitted our lives to, to God on this. Because if we did, perhaps we might have a different outcome and circumstances. Okay?
[00:12:17] And that I think is important.
[00:12:20] The other part of this is, and I'm gonna read this here in verse, James. I'm gonna skip in James a little bit. Let me pull it up real quick. But it's in James, chapter four.
[00:12:40] There's only five chapters in this book, by the way, so if you'd like to read.
[00:12:45] Read it, because it will still continue to bless you.
[00:12:52] Here we go.
[00:12:57] We'll start at verse James, chapter four, verse six.
[00:13:06] Okay. Yeah. And he gives grace generously. And the Scripture says, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
[00:13:17] That's a proverb. Okay? So then he says, so humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil and he will flee. Come close to God and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners. Purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world.
[00:13:45] God wants us to come close to Him.
[00:13:49] That's it.
[00:13:52] We make the steps to Him. He makes the steps towards us because we're seeking after Him. Not the things that he can provide, not the opportunities that he opens, not the relationships that he gets us connected to, not the house that we happen to live in, not the car that we desire, not the fame that we think we want, that we're chasing after Him.
[00:14:24] And you know what?
[00:14:26] I'm going to kind of close on this piece.
[00:14:30] Perhaps God hasn't answered our prayer yet because he knows that currently, if he gave it to us, it would take first place away from Him.
[00:14:49] Hmm. Have you ever thought of that?
[00:14:52] And again, it's not that these are all bad things. These are all good things God made. Resources, money, food, all these great things. Family.
[00:15:03] God has given us amazing blessings.
[00:15:08] The only thing that God asks for, though, is that he stays number one.
[00:15:15] And I truly believe if God stays number one in your entire life, you will have no problem, no problem staying focused on Him. And double mindedness will be a thing of the past.
[00:15:34] Double mindedness is the attempt for something, fighting for the position that God should have in your life.
[00:15:44] Submit to God, trust him, let it go.
[00:15:49] And truly, truly believe that God wants the best for you.
[00:15:55] Exceedingly, abundantly, above all that he can ask, think, or imagine. Ladies and gentlemen, that's the keys to unraveling, dismantling double mindedness in your life. All right, if you could do me a favor, share this podcast with someone.
[00:16:18] Let somebody know that if you want really a 2025 to be fruitful, this is how you do it. And in the next several weeks, I want to share with you something that's really close to my heart, something I've been building called the Lean Life Method. It is built on biblical principles. It is built in areas that God has focused in on so that we may be able to grow not just in him, but on how we work and serve with one another. I truly believe that if we are not spiritually healthy, other areas that we are connected to will not be able to survive. You cannot thrive on the Oprah's favorite list. Oprah's? I couldn't even remember Oprah's favorites list or what Dr. Oz said. I'm naming all these old folks. But you get the point.
[00:17:19] What you when you are spiritually healthy, every area of your life can grow because everything in our life is connected.
[00:17:31] Our muscles are connected to tendons, and our tendons are connected to bones. All the systems in our body work together in concert. So if it's like that in the natural, most definitely believe it's like that in the spiritual. So I'm going to be bringing some information here in the next couple weeks, so I want you to stay tuned to that. Just some great things to stay engaged and get a community going. Because I really believe that people who live a life that is lean live a life that is profitable, purposeful, and filled with potential. All right, so keep it locked here and we'll catch you in the next pod. Peace, Sa.
