The Devotional - 1007 - Works of the Wisdom of the God

The Devotional – 1007 – Works of the Wisdom of God

Our advisory, the devil walks about like a “roaring lion” seeking whom he may devour. When is the last time you saw a lion in the streets? 1 Peter 5:8 and Proverbs 26:13 identify the intense spiritual vigilance of daily life. While the apostle Peter provides the avenue of total submission to God by obedience through humility, Solomon provides the results of being lazy and failing the grace of God by disobedience. The apostle Peter goes on to say that God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. 1 Peter 5:5-11 which is the context surrounding verse eight. One way that the devil uses to defeat the believer is to insert a “fang” of pride somewhere in our relationship with others. The wound does not heal but becomes infected with more sin and love for the church family is lost. Pray for your church and be watchful – 1 Peter 4:7-11.

Comments and Challenges:

James 2:14-28

Faith alone in Jesus Christ alone is without works (Ephesians 2:8-9) and is in part; the foundational law of God for all who believe the gospel. It is all that is required by God for you or me to enter into the kingdom of God and thus be eternally separated from the domain of darkness. This is “great news” and even the words great news fails to express the “joy” in the soul of one who accepts this truth. In a rare case or more now as the final days approach before the return of the LORD some will believe the gospel and like the thief on the cross will experience the joy and then step into eternity. 

Others however, who remain may be required of God to produce works, not works to produce salvation since we are already Justified through the “blood of the Lamb, Jesus Christ”. (Note that the apostle Peter addresses this standing law of salvation in 1 Peter 1:13-21 and the apostle Paul helps his readers understand that the law of salvation is for the most of us a “three part experience” Romans 8:18-30. In other words, the apostles agree that “salvation” is the foreknowledge of God, a “Plan, or as I have said a Law” established by God that does convert the soul because it is the “Perfect” and THE only restoration God has for all who believe. Psalm 19:7.

Understanding the testimony of God allows the saint to do the work of faith, visiting the homeless, providing needed material to be comfortable, providing food and meeting the needs of people who are suffering. Prayer is one provision in meeting the need and the things that God reveals to us to do is the work that meets the need. Today churches all across this nation seem to push works in front of prayer and faith; instead of allowing FAITH to express the life of God in us. Churches that do works rather than expressing faith cripple a person’s ability to have accountability before God and His righteousness does not prevail and grace is lost.

James 2:26 – a church body without the works of the Spirit of God is DEAD. So faith without a foundation of justification is dead ALSO.

The Devotional - 1006 - Doers of Faith

The Devotional – 1006 – Doers of Faith

The world around us is growing more and more alarming as we approach the imminent return of the LORD Jesus Christ. “Yes” He is coming back to the earth, but not as the Lamb of God who has conquered SIN and DEATH through His sacrificial offering for sin once for all of mankind. But He is coming back as Hebrews 9:28 explains; “so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a SECOND time, apart from sin, for salvation”. Jesus according to scripture is coming again; the Holy Bible is SCRIPTURE there is NO OTHER religious writing that is HOLY SCRIPTURE.

 

Comments and Challenges: 

James 2:1-13

So what does the epistle of James have to do with the statement above about the imminent return of Jesus Christ the Son of God? James is writing to the Jewish people of his nation which are scattered over Asia Minor. He calls them brethren for “two reason”, the first is their heritage and the second is their relationship to God through faith in God. JESUS IS GOD! As James begins a discourse of “personal favoritism” here in chapter two he reminds his readers that FAITH in not a compartment of partiality for some and not for others.

Partiality as the apostle James speaks of is that of Leviticus 19:15; if we are going to judge those folks whom we know and love, than do not judge them for what they have or have not; but judge them according to “righteousness”. Ah ha! Isn’t different then what is common among the saints of God these days? Psalm 119:20-21 – the writer has a personal plea; “My soul breaks (literally is crushed) with longing for Your Judgments at all times. You rebuke the proud – the cursed who stray from Your Commandments.

So here is the charge to stay away from judging; judging is a faith destroyer since faith in God has nothing to do with what another person has or has not in the way of temporal riches. People “all people, believing and unbelieving are to be viewed from the platform of godly wisdom through the observation portal of “faith” and not viewed by the platform of earthly wisdom and the critical eye of what’s in a person’s pocket. This as James says is demonic and it blossoms into sin bringing about spiritual death – James 3:15

Oh how I would like to expound on these things but I have decided to spend less time in these morning devotionals for the sake of other things I must do. But the LORD has convinced me that if you the reader would like to know the TRUTH you will take the time to search out the matter of the things I do write. The apostle Paul instructs the readers in Philippi to mediate on the Word of the Living God and see for oneself that God is PRAISEWORTHY, Philippians 4:8-9. I say AMEN to that, go and search out the matter and be blessed. Good day!

The Devotional - 1005 - Doers of the Wisdom of God

The Devotional – 1005 – Doers of the Wisdom of God

There are passages in the Holy Word of God that from a base reading are alarming. Sometimes so alarming that it will bend the unbeliever in the wrong direction! Such is the one we will look at this morning. Matthew 7:13-14 – “Enter by the narrow gate for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it”. The context of the words of Jesus Christ the Son of the Living God around these two sentences of Matthew 7 clearly explain the message of the “Narrow Way” and a worthy study for anyone who will take the time to look into the perfect law of liberty and compare James 1:21-27 with the Matthew passage.

Comments and Challenges:

Our lives are full of people who claim to be “doers and hearers” for example; I know you have heard these words fall from the lips of people you know and love. You say to one; “Homer… did you know? And Homer’s immediate response even before you fully express your question is; “Oh yea, partner… been there done that” Yep! I do that all the time!

Then on the other hand you say to someone; “This is the way we wash our clothes, wash our clothes, wash our cloths, this is the WAY”… and they turn from you and say “I hear ya” as they walk away and yet the following morning or later in the day the soil and stench of life is still surrounding them like flies on the buttermilk, two by two. If you think that this is funny or non-biblical… take a quick look at Ecclesiastes 10:1.

You see everything people do is the result of the platform of WISDOM they operate from – Ecclesiastes 10:1 Dead flies, putrefy the perfumer’s ointment, and cause it to give off a foul odor; so does a little folly to one respected for wisdom and honor. James uses the poor and the rich as a tool to help you and me understand the narrow and wide gates that separate faith and works. Simply, works are full of the selfish ambitions of the “been there done that, and “I hear ya, wide gate crowd!” routine. While pure and undefiled faith is a willing heart to submit to the Law, or Wisdom of God – James 1:9-27.

God loves you and me, not because of ANYTHING that you are I have done to gain His Love. He loves us plainly because (now don’t miss it!) “GOD IS LOVE” 1 John 4:7-11 so the foundation of the Wisdom of God is based on the Truth that God’s love overrides the wisdom of the world’s system of wisdom which is based on human EFFORT and hate. Now there are many passages of scripture to prove this point, so my challenge to you is to grab hold of your Holy Bible and a concordance and search out the matter.

Have a pleasant and godly weekend and express the love of God everywhere you go.

The Devotional - 1004 - Enduring Wisdom

The Devotional – 1004 – Enduring Wisdom

While there is little that a man or woman can do to speak with “absolute authority” nor would I or anyone I know say that he or she could actually do that; there is at least in my mind a conclusion to this whole matter of two platforms of wisdom in the world around us. The one platform of human wisdom has an end, while the other platform of God’s wisdom has no end; it is eternal. Psalm 119:89 establishes the Word of God as being “forever” and Proverbs 8 establishes that the wisdom of is the foundation of creation from the beginning to the end. The world’s wisdom will die, but the Wisdom of God will remain. The Wisdom of God says that he who sins against this TRUTH wrongs his own soul and that all of those who hate the Wisdom of God love death.

Comments and Challenges:

Throughout eternity the utterance from my lips will be that “I love the Living Word of Life”. For me; 1 John 1-4 helps me to understand that while I do not see Jesus as the apostles did, that I do see Jesus through His Word. I have fellowship with Jesus through His Word and this fellowship is personal like that of the writer of Psalm 119. In our devotional time this morning we read the last eight verses 169-176, which are very personal pleas of the psalmist to have comfort and confidence in His Savior. These pleas are “eternal life” builders, in other words the writer is seeking sanctification. Now the question for you and me is: Do we seriously seek for God to sanctify us, or are we working out our own way of pleasing God?

James 1:1-8 – There are so many trials within the day that it is often very hard to keep up with them. Being overwhelmed with things is a way of life for most. Struggles with friends and relatives, difficulties with work or working companions, sickness and disease looming overhead and the unexpected melt down or accident is always in the fore shadows.

In the vernacular of a Jewish response we might hear “ooie; I should be so blessed” as he sees the freight train coming toward him. Now life is either an oncoming “out of control” freight train, or it is an opportunity for joyful blessing it depends though of which platform of wisdom you or I decide to use to deal with every moment in time. Faith in the wisdom of God works patience in trials and testing, while faith in the worlds system provides anxiety of spirit.

Life is designed by God and founded upon His Wisdom. By the way, you and I do not have the Wisdom of God as we ought, but praise God who will give us His Wisdom if we simply ask Him. The only prerequisite of this request is that we believe He will give it to us if we ask. Now I do know about me and you know about you… ever ask someone for something with the intent that they will not provide? Yes I am sure you have and guess what? You did not get what you asked for because they could see that you did not believe you would get it in the first place.

So much better it is that if we should ask “believing” or “by faith” the results are the confident expectation of receiving what we had hoped for. If we do this with our human encounters “and we do” and see the benefit, how much better will it be when we lay aside the double-mindedness of doubt and ask the LORD for the wisdom to deal with the train wreck ahead. Instability is the way of life for earthly wisdom because earthly wisdom reacts to emotion. Emotion has no faith and is full of fear and those who are led by the world’s wisdom are emotionally unstable and untrustworthy.

The Devotional – 1003 – A Treasury above the treasuries

The Devotional – 1003 – A Treasury above the treasuries

It was said before the turn of the year 2000 that the treasury of California exceeded the treasury of South Korea. In those days I would say “wow” imagine that! Looking at Wikipedia I found that there are 206 governing authorities claiming sovereignty, but only 190 are acknowledged by the United Nations. Each national authority has a treasury and yet in the judgment and justice of God all of these are ONE platform of wealth. The wealth of the world is but a mere “speed bump” to the SECOND platform of wealth which is contained, controlled and preserved in the LAW, the TESTIMONY, the STATUTES, the COMMANDMENT, the JUDGMENTS and the FEAR OF THE LORD. Psalm 19:7-10.

Comments and Challenges:

Within the treasuries of nations, there are the treasuries of local governments, of families and individuals so one might think; “so why do the people mourn, starve and become carried away with evil schemes? Proverbs 2:1-5 addresses this question but there are few who read and fewer still who read and seek to understand.

“My son, if you receive my words, and treasure my commands within you” now if you did not get the challenge; read it again! Are the commands of God viewed by you and me as part of our eternal treasury?

“So that you incline your ear to wisdom, and apply your heart to understanding” which way is the ear bent today? Are we tuned into the economies of the world around us, or are we applying our heart to understand what the will of the LORD is for us personally and nationally? Do you cry out to the LORD daily for discernment in these matters?

Solomon continues: “If you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hidden treasures; THEN you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God” We read, study and discern daily the Living Word of God, yet we always seem to miss the mark of God’s intended purpose in His Word. Proverbs 2:7 says that the LORD stores up SOUND WISDOM” for the upright. If you have faith in Jesus you are one of the upright; stored up for you is the treasury of wisdom; the Wisdom of God, not of the world. And He is waiting for you to acquire the blessing found in Proverbs 2:9.

Take the time today to read and absorb the value of SOUND wisdom and yes we are working our way to the Epistle of James, but there are many of nuggets of gold and silver to search for along the way. This search along the way will be fulfilling the words of Jesus, “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things (the Law, the Testimonies, the Statutes, the Commandments, the Judgments and the Fear of the LORD) shall be added to you. Matthew 6:33.