While studying 2 Samuel 11 this morning, I have reflected on the truism, “Love Hurts!” May I go further
and say, “Unity kills.” It’s the destroyer of attitudes and actions such as: self-will, personal pride, ego-driven ambition, self-centeredness, self-involvment, selfishness, self-seeking and self-serving. They all die at the altar of “surrender.”
For unity to reign, one’s personal agenda bows down at the altar of corporate blessing and corporate good and lays its life out, yielded to service and submitted to the yoke of Christ Jesus.
David’s Bathsheba affair is a portrait of a man who granted himself liberties he did not have. He was out of order. And, the teachings of his life show us that most often, when indulgent souls grant themselves liberties, those liberties become the foundation of a future license.
It was Satan, who began his fall by simply skipping his “morning alleluias.” David’s plunge into sin did not begin by watching Bathsheba take a bath. It began by him taking little liberties. He stayed home at a time when kings go forth to battle.
The Bible speaks of a “double-minded man being unstable in all his ways.” Who is James talking about? He is speaking of that person who refuses the life and language of faith. For he who doubts is like “a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; He is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.” James 1:6-8
The word “double-minded” in the Greek is essentially a word that means “two-souled.” David’s continued devotional life, while he continually sinned, meant that he was double-minded. Double-mindedness is the practice of holding two conflicting, separate ideas in our minds at the same time. We sin by accepting them both. Thus, we allow Jesus to indwell our lives even as we continue to pursue our self-interest.
David teaches us that it’s impossible to keep an aura of spiritual submission while trying to build shrines of self-importance. To be successful is to be obedient. To be yielded to the Master as a subject of His love. For me to live is Christ. You see, it’s only in single-mindedness that a person can walk in lockstep with Kierkegaard’s truth, “Purity of heart is to will one thing.”
