The Devotional - JAS011

The Devotional

Comment:

Are you sensitive to your heart or do you ignore it? Do your thoughts and plans include the will of our God and Father or would you rather make decisions based on what today or tomorrow may bring? Have you ever planned to go on vacation, only to find out you could not go, or find that when getting there, it was not what you expected? Many people with the best intention seek to move about doing things they call normal, only to find that what ought to be normal is really mundane or worldly, even vain. Life in the WORLD is not what we expect it to be and it is certainly not what God has in store for those who seek Him with the WHOLE heart.

Challenge: James 4:13-17 and James 4:7-10

There is not a day that goes by that evil is not present. I ask these two questions randomly to most everyone I come in contact with. “How is it going?” or “How are you?” The response is mostly the same answer, “Okay!” and that is the end of it. However, there are a few folks who have other responses. While these are unique to the responder they are not the same as “okay!” These folks are hurting inside. One such response is; “I’m livin the dream!” My response is; “How is it; you seek for me to believe that lie, since you do not believe it yourself!” “Choke, gag, stutter and they do a little mumbling!”

What? What did you say? Is my reply. Their answer; “Well I am waiting for my ship to come in, any day now and I will be living the dream, all I need to do is to wait and my dream will come true.” I only see one small thing standing in the way of the dreams of mankind and that is the failure most of us have, and that is to – WAKE UP! Most of the people I speak to are above fifty years old and when and if the ship comes in, all of us together will be too weak and feeble to unload it, much less to enjoy it!.

So what than shall we do? Since we do not know what the morrow will bring, why is it that we a have a moral to the story that never comes true? What is your life? It is a vapor full dreams with ONE promise. Which is, life is guaranteed to appear for a little time and then it vanishes away. So instead of dreaming life away we ought to be saying with confidence and integrity of mind, “If the LORD wills, we shall do this or that and we shall live.

Boasting in arrogance is nothing but EVIL and is always motivated by SIN. Even though we may deny it, we do know that all such boasting is physically, mentally and spiritually unstable. How do we overcome? “Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands you sinners and purify your hearts you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the LORD, and He will lift you up – James 4:7-10.

The Devotional - JAS010

The Devotional

Comment:

Judging people before we know the surrounding reasons is a common practice and it is a terrible SIN. The harm of judging wrongly (and there is no right way to judge) is permanent. Trying to repair the wrong is like patching a flat tire, yes you may get to use the tire again with a tire plug, but the plug will always be visible to the eye and a noticeable reminder to the ever listening ear. I am sure that if we search our heart we can immediately recall such judging of people. Whether people we judged wrongly or of being judged by others and the events that followed were not pleasant. The give and take of judging is very UNFAIR and we cannot brush judging off like a pesky fly, we hold on for the full effects as we might do on a roller-coaster ride; wanting to get off, but afraid of the fall and sudden stop. All judging is sin and all sin is lawlessness.

Challenge: James 4:11-12

Yesterday we looked at the first ten verses of James 4 and understood that a prideful heart promotes strife. If your heart is full of pride of self you most often judge things wrongly. We speak evil of one another, while thinking we are doing a good service, sadly we do not know or understand the evil damage being done in the heart of our loved ones. Thinking even that we are serving God and not understanding that we are feeding poison to a friend, loved one or even the neighbor.

Also, we do not understand that we are speaking against the Law and judge the Law of God as evil too. In Deuteronomy 5:17-20 we read these commandments of God; “you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor, you shall not murder, commit adultery or steal. Our natural mind says, “Now wait just a minute, I am saved and I am no longer under the law, I am under grace and freed from the law! Friend, do you steal the character of another brother or sister by gossip? Do you commit adultery with your eyes, judging the other person as likeminded as you? Do you judge the actions of a brother or sister and murder their integrity and love for the LORD, thus crippling your relationship with them and others around you?

We are always to do or practice the Law of God in the righteousness of Christ our LORD which is humility of heart. Thus we are not exempt of the Law because of being under grace, but the grace of God allows us to use the Law properly. We are not the Lawgiver and when we seek to improve or impose on another we are standing in the place of God who is able to save or destroy to the uttermost those who come to Jesus. Belonging to Christ our LORD who is interceding for us daily before the throne of God, He alone qualifies as our High Priest – see Hebrews 7:25-26.

The Devotional JAS009

The Devotional

Comment:

If you have ever trained to wrestle, box or be efficient in any self-defense art then you know that it is not an overnight turnover. In other words, you cannot expect to be good at these competitions or tactics by desire alone. You must be willing to spend long and painful hours in exercise, in sparring with other like-minded people and you must expect that injury could happen at any time. Now there is another aspect of defense that I left out, some folks are plainly street savvy or smart. Powerful people in their own right, being able even to outdo the one who has trained in all proper ways to be advantageous in battle. Jacob, Esau’s brother was such a person. Jacob was greedy for the birthright that belonged to Esau, yet Esau being a trained hunter and by the deceit of his brother Jacob gave up his birthright for the desire to satisfy his physical hunger. Jacob’s ability to wrestle men out of what he wanted carried him to a lonely night at a place called Jabbok, a ford near the Dead Sea. There Jacob wrestled with the angel of the LORD and was prevailing. That is until the LORD struck Jacob’s muscle causing the muscle to shrink and the hip bone to pop out of joint. This was a wakeup call for Jacob, one minute it looked as though he was winning the battle, the next minute, he is in trauma and pain. When God choses the battle is over. Well read the even in Genesis 32:22-32 and see the full picture.

Challenge: James 4:1-10

This street smart wrestling with the people around us is not something we do not know about. We wrestle with children, neighbors, brothers or sisters and so on. In fact, I am convinced that we would rather wrestle with everyone we meet than to be like Christ in their midst and by the power of the Holy Spirit be willing to turn the other cheek. ‘You have heard it said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But, “I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also” Matthew 5:38-39.

Until we come to know and understand this command of the LORD to love the enemy we will never understand that our pride over the circumstances of life is what drives us to the dead end street of senseless wrestling, heartache and ruined lives. The harder we wrestle, the more we seek to murder. You say; well that is a little outside my envelope of operation… I would never murder anyone! Oops, don’t be too sure of that. Every time we curse, malign or gossip, we murder the character of the other person.

Then we find ourselves going to God in prayer, “LORD they just don’t get it”! They never get it! I am only trying to help and whine! Whine! Whine! We go crying out to the LORD to fix the unfixable. I say STOP it! God cannot fix the speck it the others eye, until you allow Him to remove the PLANK in your own eye. Matthew 7:1-6 and especially verses 5 and 6. Now if you are a warring person like Jacob, these are hard words to digest. Yet each of us need for the LORD to make us lame to the sin of lusting to be right, before we can remove the splinter from our brother’s eye.

The scripture never says anything that is vain and the Holy Spirit of God will never use vain tactics reconcile the circumstances of life to reveal the glory of God in a prideful, lustful way. The Holy Spirit is zealous and jealous to protect the Glory of God in us and if necessary He will apply the pressure of a dislocated hip, or anything that will get our attention to give us more grace in every circumstance. We may come away crippled, physically or mentally, but we will be enriched spiritually when we humble ourselves under the graceful hand of God.

Therefore stop striving with God by using the street smart tools of the devil, draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, sinners and purify your hearts from double mindedness. Allow God to train you in godliness. Stop laughing and crying over things you have no control over. Fix your mourning and weeping by being submissive (humble) to the Will of God and the LORD will lift you up.