A Look at the Book #450

Daily Devotional – A Look at the Book #450

A Thought for today by Papa “J”

Imagine! Standing face to face with Jesus Christ and saying to Him; “What is truth?” But imagine this, that if you are still asking that question, then it may be that you have never heard His voice. John 18:37-38 and you could be a citizen of the; “Crucify Him” generation.

A DAY IN THE PAST

Inside the hull of the USS Searcher were some unique advantages that are not often found on military vessels. The ship was a man-of-war, but it had very little in the way of protection and it had no ability to be offensive. Yet, when the Bay of Pigs incident occurred we were on patrol in that area and we saw a little action with a couple of small boats. We even bullied a freighter and prevented it from entering port in Cuba. The small boats sought to force us into a shallow area called “Dog Rocks” with small arms fire but our Captain was well aware of the danger of these rocks and it all work out in our favor. Our only armament was a 3”50 turret located on the bow of the ship. We fired only one shell during the whole event and that was a shot across the bow of the freighter. Now for the advantages below decks; we had a game room large enough to support a ping pong table several card tables and a movie theater that could seat most of the crew. So when we were not fighting the enemy (which was mostly – never) we were found playing ping pong or watching movies. In those days movies came in containers of Army drab green (do you remember when?) and most of the films were what we called; “spaghetti westerns” since these were filmed in Italy the actors spoke Italian so the English was dubbed in. What a hoot! Hope you are not bored, I’m not done yet!

James 4

James 4:1-6 – What? Wars and fights among the saints of God, this should be unheard of, don’t you think? I think that it does not matter what you think since even if it is about us; it is not about us, but it is about the Spirit of God. Could this be an oxymoron? Lots of questions; so just what is the answer? The answers are found in verse five and six, but first this.

Desires and pleasures are a powerful tool of influence that works through the lust of eyes and flesh, many believers are trapped by this power and the out working of this carnal conduct is pride and covetousness for a sensual worthless reward that believers should never participate in. While you may not physically murder someone, you might gossip; yet both murder and gossip kill. 1 John 2:15-17 is a command to believers to not love the world’s system because it is passing away.

James would have us to think in terms of spiritual adultery rather than the physical act; in fact, the whole context of what we are looking at this morning is focused on faith and works from a spiritual perspective, which is the real meat of the Word of God. You do know, do you not that everything a believer in Jesus can do, can be done in the flesh and look like good biblical works. But in spiritual reality it is nothing more than; wood, hay and stubble. 1 Corinthians 3:5-17, this is the Apostle Paul’s explanation of the same issue. Well I’m not done since I’ve not pulled it all together.