Many Christians in the West suffer from dipsychos, the two-souled condition, without being conscious of the condition. The manifestation of symptoms varies with each person but three key elements of the condition are common to all. These elements are unbelief, love for the world and pride. Our English Bible calls this condition "double-minded" and James refers to it in his book in verses 1.8 and 4.8.
An overview of the book of James reflects a number of areas where this condition is active: instability, impartiality toward the rich, hearers of the word only, wild tongues, jealousy and selfish ambition, friendship with the world, judging others, doing your own thing, greed, broken promises. The fact that James does not accuse these double-minded believers of being hypocrites shows that this two-souled behavior is more unconscious than conscious. This unconscious behavior also shows that a standard of single-minded faith and holiness is lacking among them. Two-souled living has become common and acceptable making these believers spiritually weak and poor.
The remedy to this two-souled condition is to have a focused single-minded abandonment to Jesus, a choice made once and repeated a thousand times a day. The remedy is humble submission to God with repentance for our pride and resistance of the Devil (James 4.6-10, this would make a good meditation for the week). The remedy is to ask God for eyes that see the world as God sees it, and to become a true friend of God, and to grow in our understanding and application of the cross (James 4.1-5, and 1 John 2.15-17 and Galatians 6.14).
Jesus declared, “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other” (Matthew 6.24). The Holy Spirit is the only one who can reveal to us our double-minded condition. Do I dare ask Him to do that?
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