Washing Our Hands

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

In the midst of this virus epidemic there has been a multitude of encouraging articles, posts, and messages calliing on us to not give in to fear, panic, and despair. I concur with all of them. Yet there is another message to be heard as well, and it is not a popular one. It is found in the above Scripture coming from a book in the Bible that makes many a believer, particularly in the western church, decidedly uncomfortable; the book of James.

If we believe Almighty God to be totally sovereign, and I do, then we cannot miss what He is saying to us in His allowing of this pandemic. What He is saying to the world, and even more, to His church. Churches and people are praying, praying like never before in most cases. This is good, yet, what is it that we're seeking? Is it just relief from the effects of this virus? Is it a desire to get back to "normal?" If so, what is that normal? Is that at all what He wants to take us back to? A church that in many ways looks very much like the world it is supposed to apart from? A church that is nurtured more from the soda pop and junk food of the world than from the Living Water and Bread of Life that is given in Jesus Christ? He seeks a "normal" for us that is totally abnormal to much of the way we've been living. That's what makes James 4:8 decidedly uncomfortable for us, yet desperately needed as well.

Can we see the correlation between the obsessive demand that we constantly wash our hands as a means of maintaining physical health, while missing our need to have clean hands before Him? The need for the first is real, but it also shows how rooted in this world we are, because we've been content to neglect the latter consistently. We're calling out to Him now, but we've omitted the element of seeking to draw near to Him. We may have often sung the song "Give Us Clean Hands," but we've not often followed through, prayed through, on having them. There has been a great amount of double-mindedness in our devotion to Him. We talk a great deal about "lukewarm Christianity," without worrying much about whether we're one of its products. Francis Chan says there can be no such thing. I'm more and more inclined to agree. I believe the Father is as well.

I am not ready to call this pandemic a judgement from God. I do view it as a wake-up warning. If we, the church, miss what I believe He is saying in this, we can only expect more of these warnings to come, until we become so hardened and deaf to the warnings, that He can send no more. He is speaking, calling. Calling us upward, onward, and deeper. Into Him, His holiness, His righteousness, His life. May we wash our hands before Him. May our hearts be truly cleansed. May all double-mindedness be washed away. That all sounds like an awakening, and that is what I'm praying and believing for..... An awakening; in me, in His church, and in this world.

Blessings,
Pastor O