CLEAN HANDS
Scripture Reading: James 4:1-10
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)
The focus of our study this week is on the hands. The COVID era has shown us the value of cleaning our hands. We have learnt a lot about how infected hands can get our whole lives infected. Today, it is normal for us to sanitize our hands several times a day. While we cleanse our hands from the coronavirus, we must also be mindful of cleansing ourselves from sinful contaminations.
Our passage for today is from the Epistle of James. It is a passage that carries a strong rebuke and a challenge for each one of us. The verse speaks to offending believers and calls them sinners and double-minded. James calls believers who sin, sinners; and calls believers who doubt, double-minded. Those are very strong but proper rebukes.
The Apostle James was a very practical man. His letter is the New Testament equivalent of the book of Proverbs. He focuses on the practical manifestation of the righteous life and continuously challenges believers to live out their faith.
James is very intolerant of Christians who claim to have so much faith without showing any evidence of it. Christians of today must heed the words that the Holy Spirit inspired through the Apostle James to cleanse our hands.
Cleanse your hands. The word, ‘hand’, is used in this verse to mean ‘actions; what you do’. To cleanse our hands, therefore, is to do the right thing or ‘get our act together’. That means, after Christ has come to live in our hearts, we must endeavour to keep our lives clean.
Believers must not accept living in sin as a regular part of their lives. Neither can we claim our position in Christ without practically living the life that Christ has given us. The verse places the responsibility on the believer to do the cleansing. It is not just a matter of going for confession or asking God to forgive us of our sins; we must make an effort to stop doing the wrong thing. That is what it means to cleanse our hands.
Today, this ancient rebuke from the Apostle James must be heeded by all of us. Let us commit to do more than cleaning our hands with soap. We must look at our words and actions that do not honour Christ and cleanse ourselves from them.
Prayer: Heavenly Father, I turn away from sin and what I know to be wrong; help me to live the life of Christ. In Jesus’ name, Amen!
