Fire the committee

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 (ESV)

This verse has been echoing in my mind ever since I preached on James 4:1-10 a few months ago; which is why this post from the Rev. Dr. Ray Ortlund really struck me today:

You and I are not integrated, unified, whole persons. Our hearts are multi-divided. There is a board room in every heart. Big table. Leather chairs. Coffee. Bottled water. Whiteboard. A committee sits around the table. There is the social self, the private self, the work self, the sexual self, the recreational self, the religious self, and others. The committee is arguing and debating and voting. Constantly agitated and upset. Rarely can they come to a unanimous, wholehearted decision. We tell ourselves we’re this way because we’re so busy with so many responsibilities. The truth is, we’re just divided, unfocused, hesitant, unfree.

He’s right; and as he says, it isn’t enough just to “accept Jesus” if all that means is that we give Jesus a seat on the committee, which too often is all we do. That leaves us still divided in our allegiance—divided against God, divided against ourselves. The only real solution is far more drastic:

The other way to “accept Jesus” is to say to him, “My life isn’t working. Please come in and fire my committee, every last one of them. I hand myself over to you. Please run my whole life for me.” That is not complication; that is salvation.

“Accepting Jesus” is not just adding Jesus. It is also subtracting the idols.

Which is why, as C. S. Lewis said, Christ plus anything equals nothing—because if we insist on hanging on to anything else, we don’t get Jesus.