To submit to God, we need to cleanse our hands and purify our hearts. This daily devotional looks at how we cleanse and purify ourselves through humility.
Nuggets
- We cleanse our hands by confessing our sins and allowing the blood of Christ cleanse us.
- We need to purify our hearts because that is where our character comes from.
- We are not submitting to God when we focus on the joy of this world.
- Our ability to submit hinges on our ability to humble ourselves.
Devotions in the Approach to Knowing God series
We ended our last devotion talking about Murray’s assertion that we can resist the devil because we are not forced to sin. What came next was Murray’s statement that said, “The thought that you can succeed in keeping your hand and heart clean is a constant inspiration to persevere.”
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Isn’t that encouraging! Aren’t there so many times we feel we can’t resist the devil, so we aren’t clean? Let’s dig in.
Let's Put It into Context #1
Godliness, equated with the Old Testament term fear of the Lord, is an attitude of reverence that is promoted by walking in His Spirit and obeying God’s laws and commandments and produces a moral likeness of God.
Let's Put It into Context #2
Nuggets from the previous devotions in the series:
- Knowing God is more than just thinking there is some Power Who created this universe.
- We are to understand; but knowing God does not mean we will be able to understand everything.
- We begin to know God when we diligently pursue knowing Him and doing His Will.
- It is our duty to surrender our will to God by submitting to Him.
- Some think that God requiring our obedience is a string to the gift, but it isn’t.
- If submitting to God is required, why isn’t it easier to accomplish?
- We resist the devil when we obey God’s laws and commandments.
- We can only resist the devil through God’s power.
- We are told God never leaves us, but we are to turn to Him.
How Do We Cleanse Our Hands When We Submit to God?
“… Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded” (Jas. 4: 8 ESV)
We cleanse our hands by confessing our sins and allowing the blood of Christ cleanse us.
No, this isn’t talking about washing our hands here. It is talking about being clean.
- Cleanness has to do with the Israelites remaining holy.
- Holy means to be set apart, perfect, and pure.
- The perfected state indicates the combination of the graces which, when all are present, form spiritual wholeness or completeness.
- Purity means we are without the stain of sin.
Hmmm. We got from the cleanse to the purify.
Well, there is a progression. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (I Jn. 1: 9 ESV).
It isn’t something we do on the outside, like washing our hands. It is the blood of Jesus washing our hearts to get the sin out of it.
We have to make the decision to submit to God. Then He cleanses us from sin.
Let’s look at this another way. Yes, God is calling us to change. He isn’t in the business of fire insurance.
God doesn’t want us to confess Him as Sovereign God and not gain His character. That isn’t submitting.
God wants us to cut out the sin in our lives. We can’t hold on to our sinful ways and think God will give us salvation. Salvation is deliverance from evil and the consequences of sins to replace them with good and eternal life.
Spurgeon put it this way. He wrote, “If you do the devil’s work with your hands, do not expect the Lord to fill them with His blessing.”
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Ooo, baby. How many times do we do that? We expect God to take our lip service and ignore our clinging to our sins.
We talked about the consequences of this before. We had a devotion entitled What Do You Mean All Disciples Won’t Get into Heaven?
Scary, isn’t it?
We said that, if we don’t put into practice God’s laws and commandments, we are going to show that we don’t think they are important enough to follow. We don’t think we have to submit to God and do them.
To read a related devotion, click the button below.
Instead, we are to genuinely ask forgiveness of our sins. Candlish wrote, “The sins we confess are so forgiven that we are cleansed from all unrighteousness with regard to them. The forgiveness is so free, so frank, so full, so unreserved, that it purges our bosom of all reserve, all reticence, all guile; in a word, ‘of all unrighteousness.’ And it is so because it is dispensed in faithfulness and righteousness; ‘He is faithful and just in forgiving our sins.’”
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Elaine-speak. God doesn’t sorta forgive us of our sins. It isn’t just a surface forgive.
God does a deep cleanse. It isn’t just part of them — it is all of them. It is such a deep cleans that it gets down to the sparkly clean of righteousness. Righteous means we are free from sin because we are following God’s moral laws.
That means it is a true repentance. Repentance is acknowledging our separation from God and expressing sorrow for breaking God’s laws and commandments by making the commitment to changing ourselves through obedience so that we no longer do the wrong things.
We not only ask forgiveness for our sins, but we also turn away from them. We give them up because we know they are breaking God’s laws and commandments.
So, we submit to God’s laws and commandments.
It is a deep clean. Not only our sins are purged, but also the guilt of our sins is washed away. Yeah, carting around that guilt can sometimes be just as bad as the initial sin.
How Do We Purify Our Hearts When We Submit to God?
“… purify your hearts, you double-minded” (Jas. 4: 8 ESV)
We need to purify our hearts because that is where our character comes from.
Our heart is very important in our faith. The greatest commandment says, “And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mk. 12: 30 ESV).
Glossary
Why is the heart so important that it was listed first? It was written in the Expository Discourses that “The fountainhead of all that enters into human history and character, is the heart.”
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Jesus explained it this way. “And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person’” (Mk. 7: 20-23 ESV).
Jesus was trying to tell the Pharisees that we can’t just make it a surface religion. Our faith has to lead to a relationship with God.
A relationship with God has to lead to a change in our character. That is going to have a major impact on us.
Ooo, baby. Why does Jesus mention this first? What harm does our thoughts do to anyone else? And isn’t that mind, not heart? Sadler wrote, “So that out of the heart, out of the unseen and unthinkable depths within, proceed the evil thoughts which become evil acts within before they are incarnated, as it were, in some evil deed without.”
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The evil thoughts lead to evil actions.
Covetousness is a greed for wealth and possessions. This greed makes the object into an idol. An idol is an object of worship in any form that takes from God the worship that is His due.
Worshiping an idol means we are not submitting to God.
Chamfort called covetousness a form of mental gluttony. We want an excess of honor, but we get there by selfishness
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Non-believers are identified in Scriptures by the term wicked. That means they are sinful.
We can’t have a double-mind. We can’t say we are a disciple but then choose to keep committing sins. That means we are trying to serve God and Satan.
That doesn’t end well.
Why Do We Want Our Laughter Turned into Mourning?
“Be miserable and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom” (Jas. 4: 9 ESV)
We are not submitting to God when we focus on the joy of this world.
Whoa. Wait a second here. Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around. Aren’t we supposed to be sad and then get happy?
This really isn’t talking about that. Remember when we were studying the Beatitudes, we asked why disciples were blessed if they mourned.
To read a related devotion, click the button below.
We said that, when we sin, we should mourn that we have broken God’s laws and commandments. True repentance means we are broken because we have sinned against God.
That doesn’t lead to laughing and joy.
We only purify our hearts when we get the sin out. We are not going to be fixing to get it out if it brings us warm, fuzzy feelings.
Mouton wrote that the weeping moderates the joy. That brings us back to being sober and even-keeled, not jumping from one extreme to another.
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Glossary
How Do We Humble Ourselves When We Submit to God?
“Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you” (Jas. 4: 10 ESV)
Our ability to submit hinges on our ability to humble ourselves. Humility is a character trait that diminishes pride and places dependence on God while holding a modest view of our importance with respect to others.
Turnbull contends that the submission stems from the humility. You don’t start with submission and become humble. You start with the humble, that facilitates the submission.
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Spurgeon put it this way. He wrote, “The right position of a Christian is to walk with lowly humility, before God, and with meekness towards his fellow-Christians.”
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That is what Jesus was talking about when He said, “So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen” (Mt. 20: 16 KJV).
To read a related devotion, click the button below.
God doesn’t ask us to be humble to cut us down. He is asking us to put the correct emphasis on our worship to Him.
Making the Connections
So, let’s put all of this together. The humble shall be rewarded because they are submitting to God. Those that are prideful won’t be rewarded.
Salvation is given to those who are truly repentant and will submit to God. There may be some who have made a profession of faith but haven’t submitted. They will not enter Heaven.
We cleanse and purify when we choose to submit. Submitting gets us to the purity, but choosing gets us to the submitting.
How Do We Apply This?
So, how do we keep clean and pure? Murray wrote, “Only ‘resist evil,’ only stand firm, only try, and whatever of good you in your better moments crave will come to you, and abide with you, as the light of the sun to-day comes to the earth, elicting its manifold fruitage, and illuminating it from pole to pole. Yea, your life shall be like a globe belted and zoned with expressions of life; and never shall there be an hour when some portion of it shall not be in flower and fruitfulness.”
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Keep making the decisions to live for God. If you feel bombarded by Satan, do it one decision at a time. Don’t focus on all the decisions that Satan is having you make. Make one decision for God and celebrate it.
What do I mean celebrate? I am talking about praising God for bringing you through.
Use God bringing you through that decision to encourage you in the next decision. He always tells us to remember how He provided.
Glossary
Submitting is a choice. It unlocks many benefits. But our sins need to be forgiven so that we are clean and pure.
Father God. Mankind brought sin into this world by disobeying You. In response, You designed the Plan of Salvation so that we could be forgiven if we submit ourselves to You. This plan includes our being cleansed and purified. That is only done through obedience to Your laws and commandments and resisting Satan. Help us to live for You. Amen.
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to
live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
What do you think?
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