Count it all joy, count every experience as joy. The good, the bad, and the ugly, because it's gonna help us, as God's people, to be perfected. - Welcome to Mind Matters with Dr. J.A. Jones. Dr. Jones is the head pastor of the Faith Community Church of God in Orange Park, Florida. Relationships, finances, our spiritual life, whatever it is, our problems start within, in our minds. Dr. Jones explores mental wellness through the application of God's word in our lives. It's just what the doctor ordered. Let's join him now and dig into Mind Matters, because your mind matters to God. - Thank you for tuning in to Mind Matters and welcome. Again, everyone that has been listening to this radio show, I'm so excited to have this opportunity. Today we're gonna get into some more principles that can shape our lives and guide our decisions, because we're gonna talk about today, I think a topic it's so vital, as it relates to Mind Matters, the radio show that I'm so grateful and thankful to be a part of, the dangers of a double mind. Wow, the dangers of a double mind. I know sometimes in life, have you ever been double-minded? Have you ever wanted to do something and you change your mind and you realize, oh, I should have did what I thought the first time. It could be in a relationship, it could be with your money, it could be in your spiritual walk with God, because sometimes we are double-minded based on life experiences. But today we wanna get wisdom from the book of James, which is the brother of Jesus, or have brother Jesus, however you wanna look at it, and a leader in the early Christian church, because he gives us some profound insights into the consequences of having a double mind. Now James wrote the letter to Jewish Christians, they were scattered abroad to encourage them to live out their faith with integrity and perseverance. The Greek word for double-minded in James chapter one, verse number eight, it says this, it talks about the Greek word as this, two souls. T-W-O-S-O-U-L-E-D, two souls. It refers to someone who is divided in their loyalty and uncertain in their convictions. I'm gonna read the scripture, James chapter one. It says this, if any of you lack wisdom, first number five, let him ask of God who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But guess what, let him ask in faith without doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the seed driven and tossed by the wind, for let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord, for he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. Wow, we're gonna get into the parts, the nuggets today, but again, I'm thankful for you to be able to tune in, to this show, which is so important to have with me, Cindy Jones, I'm thankful for her to be with me as well. Anything you wanna say to our audience or just greet us today? - Hello everyone, good to be here with Dr. Jones. I am just here for his support. - Absolutely, the Bible says he that finds a wife has a good thing and obtain favor from the Lord. - Amen. - I like that, and I thank God for you, absolutely. - Wonderful. - 'Cause the Bible talks about that in the book of Genesis. You are my help meet. - That's right. - Right, to help, to support, and I thank you for your support. All these years, 46 years together, we've had some good, we've had some bad, but through it all, we've learned to trust in Jesus, we've learned to trust in God. And I'm thankful for you. Absolutely. - Absolutely. - So we're gonna get going and continue this message today or this thought as it relates to a double mine. What comes to mind, Cindy, when you think of the word double mine? - Wish you watch it. - Wish you watch it. - Wish you watch it up and down and out, unstable, you never know what the person's gonna do. - That's right, because when a person is double minded, it could roll over into a relationship. They one way, this day, and another way, the next day, it could be double minded in their own finances, their integrity, they lack it because they may say, I'm gonna do this with it, but they find themselves spinning more than they should. - But you say it, but you say it. - But you say it. - But you say it. - But you say it. - But you do something else. - Right, right. - Yes, that's frustrating. - What's frustrating? - They say one thing and do another. Well, that's part of the double minded syndrome, for sure. You know, absolutely, absolutely. Now, I like this passage, let's get into it because it is so important. Now, in the book of James, it's a powerful book to me. It says, "Count it all joy," and in first verse, actually, as you go, actually verse number two, it says, "When you fall into various trials or diverse temptation, "knowing that the testing of your faith "produces patience," but then it says, verse four, "but let patience have its perfect work, "that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing." Then we read verse number five about if any lack wisdom. So this is a powerful verse in the context to help us to understand when you're going through something, your attitude, it's key because you have to count all of your trials, joy. - Count it all joy. - You got to count. That's a counting is a reconciliation term. When you count it all, you know, it's almost like, I hope everybody, if you have a checking account or savings account, or if you use a debit card or credit card and if it's attached to your checking account, that means you should reconcile your bank statement. - Yes. - Once a year? - No. - Monthly. - Monthly, right? - Yes. - Right. That means you got to count everything. - How are days you got to do it weekly? - Okay, well, I'm just saying, monthly, weekly, daily. Most people don't do that, Cindy. - Yeah. - I know a lot of people. - Where did the money go? - They don't even know how much they have that came in, they don't even know how much comes out. They may have a basic idea of what comes in, what come in, right? - What they expect to receive. - What come in, right, what comes in today. - You may have already gone out, depending on your habits. - Right, right. They just don't know how much have left. - What's your current status? - Their house. - Yeah. - Because they're using a debit card, they're using credit cards too much, they're using all of these things. So my point is that it's counted all joy. - Yes. - Count every experience as joy. The good, the bad, and the ugly, because it's gonna help us, as God's people, to be perfected because it says, let patience have its perfect work, that we may be mature, complete. I love this part, lacking nothing. That means we have everything we need when we counted all joy, based on the trials, right? Based on the problems, when we're patient, we can be matured through this experience in life, and we can be complete. - Yes, one of my former coworkers, back in some years ago. - Okay, okay. - We used to put it, use it as a attitude check. - Use what, as an attitude check. - The scripture here. - Oh, really, I didn't know that. - Yes. - So something came to your heart. - Yes, when we got frustrated on the job, we was like, count it all joy. You know, so we can change our attitude, so we wouldn't get upset. - Absolutely. - But to keep our joy, count it all joy. When frustrating things happen on the job. - Right. - You know, instead of getting all upset and frustrated and, you know, 'cause a lot of things happen on the JOB that, you know, you can lose your joy. - Yes. - Yeah, so we decided to-- - Count it all joy. - Count it all joy. - When you are dealing with certain things, you're just, okay, Lord, I'm having this as joy. Because why is that? I think when we do that, because the Bible said-- - You get stressed out. - You get stressed out, right, right. - Yes, and, you know, it affects your body, affects your mood, you know, you don't wanna walk around mad, bad, ugly. - Right, right, well you can, but you just don't want to, but people still do, Cindy, because, you know, the Bible says as relates to joy in his presence, there's fullness of joy. - Yes. - And I love that particular passage. So as we move forward in today's thought, the dangers of a double mind, some people don't even know they have a double mind, a two-sold mind. And that's so important as we address it today. Now James wrote this particular book inspired by the Holy Spirit. And he said something I think is so important because it's based on his experience. There's no other place in the Bible that mentions a double mind, those two words together, I'm talking about, it addresses other things as it relates to our mind, for sure. But I believe James coined this particular phrase, a double mind, let me tell you why, because he had one at one point too, himself. He went through some things and he could talk about it from experience to help other believers that were scattered abroad to help them to understand what it means to be in that state of a double mind because there's some dangers there. And we're gonna talk about that. Now, because the Bible says, I believe James doubted Jesus' ministry early on. In Mark chapter three, I believe it's verse number 20, then Jesus entered a house and again, a crowd gathered so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. When his family heard about this, his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said he is out of his mind. That is crazy for your own peoples to say, you're out of your mind, in the community. - Your family has said that about you too. - Yeah, throw some shade on you. Put some hate mail out there, come on now. No, James had a double mind at one point, but now he's now a believer and he understands the power of a double mind and the dangers of that. - 'Cause you grow up in a certain environment and when you decide to go higher or to not do things the way that you've always done it or that the families used to seeing you operating. They said, have he lost his mind? - Have he lost his mind? - Are you out of your mind? - Right. - You think you can do this? - And he did, Jesus did because he was doing the father's will. - Yeah. - The Bible say he did nothing except the father told him. And some of the things, well, I don't know about some, probably everything he did, probably blew people's mind, said, what? You can heal people, what? People listen to you, people follow you, you can heal a leopard, you can open the blind eyes, the deaf ears, you can cause people to live better. You make people think. I mean, I think that's a big important thing. Jesus presented many questions to help people think. People don't think. I'm gonna say it that way. No, people don't, you know, that's my vernacular. Amen, if you don't like it, let me know. People do not think. - Yeah, and then when you give your life to Christ and you start thinking and you stop doing a lot of things that you used to do, you know, then you may have family or friends that say, oh, you think you're better than us now? - Come on. - Right. - Right. - So they want you to still operate the way that they operate. - Right. - But you have a change tonight. - You do have a change tonight. - Right. - And I'm a trial can push you forward instead of staying stuck in a rut, you know, I don't live like I used to live. Cause I'm thinking different. Cause I'm thinking, according to what God has said, the way I can live, because I can live better today than I did yesterday. I can live better yesterday than I did the day before. We gotta learn how to think better. And so a mind won't be shifting and double-minded. So you can't be as say, going back and forth between two ways. You tempted to operate the way you used to, but then you have a new way of life now. - Absolutely. - You gotta be settled on one of them. - Absolutely. So as we get to the first point as relates to the dangers of a double mind, it is the importance of asking for wisdom in faith, right? The importance of asking in faith. Because when we seek God's guidance, we must do so with an unwavering trust. You know, we gotta put our trust in God. Every day, every second, every minute and every hour. We gotta ask in faith. - Dr. Jones is the pastor of Faith Community Church of God in Orange Park, reaching a hurting world with the love of Jesus. We thank you for listening to Mind Matters and we encourage you to show support for the many community outreach ministries that Dr. Jones and Faith Community Church tend to. You can give at Faith Community's website faithccop.org or just text money sign and the amount you want to give to 833-435-8022. That's 833-435-8022. We are blessed to be a blessing. Now, let's get back to the program. - It is so vital to understand the scripture as it relates to asking in faith. We already know faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. But this is what the scripture says in Mark 11, I believe in 24th, 11th chapter 24th verse. Therefore, I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them and you will have them. We got to ask in faith when we're going through something. And that's what the context of this thought today as it relates to the topic, the dangers of a double mind when you're going through a trial because the testing of your faith produces patience and patience must have its perfect work. - Mm-hmm, and so it says, when you ask, believe that you receive them, when you ask, when it comes out of your mouth, you believe then that you receive them, that you're gonna get it. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean you're gonna receive it right away. There's always a process. - Okay. - And that's what we get kind of tripped up is during the process. - Okay. - Things, things, well, it ain't happening yet. Well, when is it gonna happen? We may not be ready to receive them, you know. Believe that you're gonna get it. - Yeah. - But, you know, it may not be time yet. We may not be mature enough to receive it. - Right. - We may mess things up. - Right. - You know, but when we ask for them, we got to believe right then that we're gonna get it. - Yes. - It's just a matter of time. - Well, it says, like I said, ask in faith. And that's what we're talking about. 'Cause the Bible said in Hebrews chapter 11, verse six, but without faith, it is impossible to please him. Him meaning God. You know, we're not trying to please man, but we're trying to please God. For he who comes to God, that's you and I, and everybody that is listening to me, or we'll listen, when you come to God in prayer, when you come to God asking, as you just stated, it's and it must believe that he is. And that he is a rewarder of those who sometimes seek him. - No, no. - What? - Diligent. - Diligently, fervently, intently seek him. - Yes. - Because faith is the foundation of our relationship with God. When we doubt, guess what happens? We actually are questioning God's ability and willingness to help us, which undermines our own prayers. It will undermine our prayer. It will do that because faith is the foundation of our relationship with God. And that's so key today. - Yeah. And so there's, it's an ask in faith. And faith requires work. Faith without works is dead. - Yes, it does. - Oh, okay. - So we ask God for something. So if we believe what we ask, then we will put feet to our faith. We will start the process. We will do what we believe is necessary to accomplish that. - Right. - But God will help us out because we believe in men and he will open doors for us. He will make ways for us. He will give us favor. - Yes. - As we walk through the process by faith, believing that it's gonna happen. - Yes. Oh, absolutely. - Yeah. - All right. - That's what shows that we have faith is when we put feet to our faith, when we start working. - Yes. - When we start planning, when we start doing the work, that is showing our faith. - I think people get it messed up because you're right, because faith without works is dead, but they wanna see the work before they have faith, which is not faith. They wanna see the evidence before they have faith. They wanna see the miracle, oh, I got faith. But no, that's backwards. - Yeah. - That's not spiritual. It may be natural. It may be logical in our own mind, but God doesn't deal with us with earthly logic or fleshly logic. - Yeah, that's kinda like, you know, acquire or praise team that wants to sound good. - Right. - You know, but they don't wanna rehearse. - They don't wanna put the work in. That's what you mean. You gotta put the work in. - They're just expecting to sound good. - Right. - And everything's gonna be great. - Or a singer. - But they don't wanna practice. - Or somebody playing a sport, they wanna do good, but, you know, we got the Olympics going on now. I mean, you know, a lot of people wanna do good, but they gotta put in the work. They gotta put in the time. And part of putting in the work is being coached. - Yeah. - You gotta get coached. You gotta eat right. All of those things are vital. So number two, let's talk about it. The unstable nature of doubt, my goodness, because as we talked about importance of asking in faith, we gotta, we must not doubt God because it shows a lack of trust in his promises. And the second one is this, the unstable nature of doubt, because James likens a doubting person to a wave of the seed, driven and tossed by the wind. Now, this imaginary highlights the instability that doubt brings in our lives. The Bible said in Ephesians chapter number four, verse 14, that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every win of doctrine. But the trickery of men in the cunning of craftiness of deceitful plotting, doubt is part of the win, right? Every win of doctrine, and that's so important. - You know, children believe what you tell them. - Okay, yes. - 'Cause they don't know any better. And so they will believe whatever someone tell them because they don't know. - Right. - And so this scripture, this is what I think about when you just read this scripture. - Okay, Ephesians four, gotcha. - When every wind of doctrine come through, they believe people that are in their child, child this stage, I say. - Child this stage. - Spiritual style. - Okay. - Child. - Spirit, okay. - Yeah, they believe any doctrine that will come their way. - As of when they get confused, they get tossed too. - They're immature as a child, spiritually. They're a spiritual child. They just gave the life to Christ. - Okay, yeah. - And they have a hunger to grow spiritually. But they hear this doctrine and they hear that doctrine and they get confused and they don't know which way is right. And so they're tossed too and fro. - Right. - And so just like a natural child, they listen to adults. - Right. - You know. - Absolutely. - Just adults say one thing and this other adult says another, which one is true? So they get tossed too and fro. And so the nature of doubt is they, if you get confused, - Right. - You get to a point where I don't believe anything, y'all say, I don't know who to believe. - Right, right, right. - You know. - Absolutely. - Is that true? Is that true? What should I believe? - Yes, yes. - Is it gonna work? - Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. - Yeah. - Mm-hmm. - And that's why this point is so vital to the unstable nature of doubt. The scripture also said in Matthew 14, but when he saw the wind was boisterous, he was afraid and beginning to sink, he cried out saying, "Lord, save me." And immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and called him and said to him, "O you of little faith, why did you..." What? - Doubt. - There you go. - Yeah. - See doubt is the enemy to your faith. - Mm-hmm. - Ma'am, thank you for tuning in to Mind Matters. We are here to encourage everyone that will listen. There's a danger of having a double mind. There is an clear and present danger of having a double mind. We already addressed the importance of asking in faith when you're going through a trial. We are all gonna go through a trial at some point because the storm is gonna come, the rain is gonna come in your relationship, in your finances, it could come in your health or people that you know and care about, right? You know, but there's a danger in a double mind. We're gonna talk about, we have talked about the importance of asking in faith and now we're addressing the unstable nature of doubt because doubt creates instability and inconsistency, making it difficult to stay on course because just as waves are subject to the whims of the wind, a doubters decision and actions can erratically and can they can be unpredictable, they can be erratic and unpredictable, right? A person that is a doubter, it's unstable. You know, we talked about the disciple Thomas. - They don't know what to believe. - Right, what about the disciple Thomas? - Yeah. - You know, he doubted, but he said, if I can only see his hands, right, if I can see the fingerprints, but again, he couldn't comprehend Jesus being resurrected. - Right. - You know, I don't hate him. I don't throw shade on Thomas, doubting Thomas, but still he lacked. - Well, he never seen, he never seen, okay. - Right. - Yeah, right. This man, I seen him crucified everything. - Right, absolutely. - And y'all up here seeing y'all done seen him. - Come on. - No, no. - He's being bad. - And his mind, which is not correct, biblically, I gotta see him to believe this. I gotta touch it to believe this, you know. Then Jesus said, blessed are those that have not seen and yet believe. - Right. - And that is key in what we're saying. The unstable nature of doubt is critical to know and counteract that with faith. - Yes. - If Jesus rebuked the disciple and he said, oh, you of little faith. That means a little burst of faith. When he really said that, he's like, oh, I'm excited, I got faith. I got faith. - Yeah, he was walking on the water. - Right. - But then he's like-- - Your faith is gonna be tested, though. - Oh, yeah. - Your faith will always be tested. - Yeah. - And we gotta realize that whether we have true faith or not, until our faith in God, we may have faith in people or faith in other systems, but you gotta have faith in God. - Yeah, we can look at what is taking place by us walking by faith. - Right. - Or we can put our eyes on the circumstances and say, oh my goodness, what's gonna happen? And why am I out here? Am I crazy? Why am I believing this? But it's working. It's working. - That's right. - But you just keep walking. - Yes, walk by faith. - But Peter stopped walking and he started, he put his eyes on the situation and he started to sink. - Come on, somebody. Amen. - He started to sink. - I agree, we cannot-- - But he did look to Jesus. - Because our eyes represents what we can see in the natural, but he stepped out in the spiritual. - Yeah. - And a lot of times we step out spiritually to do something and we trust God, but we put our eyes on the wrong thing, the wrong person, the wrong experience, because that's what we are sharing with everyone today as it relates to what James has to say about a trial, right? And as we get to this particular passage, the Bible talks about a double-minded man. It's unstable in all his ways. And that's so key to have that understanding. You know, I've been watching the Olympics, I saw the surfing, and that was awesome, but just imagine trying to balance yourself on a surfboard in choppy waters, but you have no skill. - I don't like the balance being. - Right, I know you don't. I know you don't, but you're on a surfboard and you're going out there, but you have no surfing skills. You're gonna fall off the board every time. - Oh, yeah. What makes us similarly unsteady in our faith journey when we doubt, when you doubt, you're really gonna do without what you really want. - Yes, I love hearing the testimonies of these athletes of the work. They believe they're gonna win the gold. They're all wanting to win the gold and they put in the work, the hard work of making their bodies so tone and hard. - Absolutely. - And go through the, all the hard work that he have to go through to accomplish the gold and not necessarily. Only one's gonna win the gold. - Absolutely, thank you, thank you. Great input, First Lady, thank you. Audience for joining us on My Matters Today. We covered dangers of a double mine and the importance of faith, stability, and understanding certain things, because when we trust God fully in his promises and we commit to his ways, we can experience the peace and direction that comes from a steady, unwavering faith. And I want everybody to tune in next time because we're gonna continue the thought on a double mine and the dangers of it. Thank you again, audience. Thank you again, Cindy, for being with me. And we look forward to seeing everybody next week as we talk about the dangers of the double mine part two. You don't wanna miss it. Thanks for tuning into another episode of Mind Matters with Dr. J. A. Jones. Be sure to tune in next Sunday at 5 p.m. right here on Praise 107.9. For more insightful discussion about how God's word can get our minds right. You can also hear Dr. Jones preach in person Sundays at 11 a.m. at Faith Community Church of God at 1268 Gainell Avenue in Orange Park, Florida, 32073. Thanks again for listening. Stay mindful and keep striving for improvement because your mind matters to God. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]
