The Devotional - JAS008

The Devotional

Comment:

Many years have passed but I remember filling in for a pastor of a church in Ledyard, CT who was recovering from an illness. One Sunday on our way home a driver in another vehicle pulled in front of us and nearly caused an accident. I immediately leaped on the opportunity to react in anger and the words of complaint were not well received. Of course it was not the other driver who heard the words, these words fell on my wife and she said; “Jesse! Didn’t you just get through preaching a good message and have you forgotten it already?” She certainly has a way to deflate the wind in my sail and if I ignore her, her stricter judgment reaches out and punches me in the arm. Unfortunate for me, is that I have not learned from these moments in time. Why just last Friday I was struck again with another strong punch. I explained to her that it did not hurt, but my round of golf on Monday suffered.

Challenge: James 3:1-18

In the wisdom of this chapter is found the major intention of the tongue, we stumble over many things in life and at the top of the list of failures is the tongue. Words once spoken cannot be retrieved. Solomon has a lot to say about the tongue in his skill in living book we call Proverbs. In Proverbs 24:28 we read the following. “Do not be a witness against your neighbor without cause. For would you deceive with your lips? Do not say, “I will do to him just as he has done to me; I will render to the man according to his work.” – NKJV

Another version the NIV reads this in verse 29 – “Do not say, I’ll do to him as he has done to me; I’ll pay that man back for what he did.” The warning is clear is it not? The desire of the tongue is the expression of the inner man. Getting even is revenge and revenge is one of the devil’s major tools. This thought in verse 6 renders the tongue as capable of defiling the whole body; the church and the individual. The tongue is in a compartment in the individual body that reveals to the world, iniquity, or better translated, unrighteousness and this destroys many within the church.

A sin, an inner man behavior that no man can tame, only the absolute control of the Holy Spirit can and will curb the tongue from a speedy blast of unrighteousness. We can in one moment – Bless our God and Father, who has created all of us in His likeness, but running parallel to our blessing is the invisible trip wire of cursing. The apostle says boldly – My brothers and sisters, these things ought not to be!

So who is wise and understanding among us, good conduct is a work of faith, faith in God the Scripture explains, OVERCOMES the world. What does the apostle John say of this? “For everyone born of God overcomes the world, this is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is he who overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.” Thus if you believe and yet store away in your heart bitterness, envy and self-seeking revenge we lie against the truth. This wisdom does not come from God, but it is earthly, sensual and demonic.

The fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who are willing to make peace. Not peace according to the rules of the world around us but from a wisdom that comes down from God, James 1:2-8. What does this wisdom look like? It is first PURE, secondly it is PEACEFUL, then GENTLE, then willing to YEILD, full of MERCY, resulting in good WORKS. Purity, peaceable, gentle, yielding and merciful, the Spiritual process of the work of faith that God blesses.

The Devotional - JAS007

The Devotional

Comment:

Useless faith! Harsh words for anyone who is seeking to walk by faith. I believe that the major Spiritual thought in the mind of James in this epistle is for the children of God to understand sanctifying faith. A faith that is pleasing to God under the trials and tribulations that we children of God run into daily. The apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:7 and writing also in the Spirit says, “For we walk by faith, not by sight” the subject of this section of scripture is having assurance of the Resurrection, or the assurance of our eternal state of life based on the assurance we have of Jesus Christ who is the firstfruits of being risen from the dead. The apostle Paul uses the term “we walk by faith” meaning that the effort, or the work of faith is the assurance or proof that we, being absent from this fleshly body are indeed being fully clothed; that is to be absent from this body of flesh we are assured of being present with the LORD.

Challenge: James 2:14-26

With assurance of the resurrection we ought to understand that faith in Jesus Christ begins at the moment we agree with the gospel. What is the gospel? The gospel is that Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary as God’s Son, that His plan to be obedient to the Father’s Will, led Him to His physical death on the cross at Calvary as His Father’s sacrificial offering to mankind. A sacrifice as the Lamb of God to take away the SIN of the world. And according also to this Plan and Will of His Father, be resurrected and returned to life on the third day after His death on the cross – see Luke 24:13-26 and John 1:28-34.

This message of the gospel of God is recorded over and over again throughout the Holy Bible, note that the resurrected Jesus did not use any New Testament writings (there were none). We read in Luke 24:27 – and beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded (explained) to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. Faith is the gift of God to everyone who believes. The grace of God offers salvation to all who believe the gospel, thus Faith once received is not a work, but a gift.

If one choses to set the gift of faith aside, or to use it selectively, this one’s faith will be useless. He or she will watch as other children of God pass by with needs. While blessing these children in casual conversation those of selective faith will purposely ignore the needs of others. This does not mean that they fail in every area of faith, but it does mean that these children of God are using a selective faith. A system of works that ensures pleasing self and certain friends or neighbors. This faith does not please God, it pleases the devil and those who practice such faith should tremble since in the eyes with whom we have to do, sees this faith as dead or nonproductive to the glory of God.

The faith that is pleasing to God is the faith that works with God, not against God, Abraham in his mind understood that his faith was not foolish. So powerful was his understanding of faith in God that he did not hesitate to offer his son as a sacrifice to God, believing fully that if his son perished in the process that God was fully ready to raise up Isaac from the dead. By this work (assurance) Abraham’s faith was complete and not SELECTIVE. Therefore by believing God, Abraham’s faith provided or accredited to him as righteousness.

Justification and sanctification is provided, but not by the works of the flesh, but by the WORKS of FAITH. Do anything to gain God’s favor without completed trust in God and that effort will fail the glory of God. If one’s body is dead what can the spirit of the body do – NOTHING. So it is with a dead faith that is alive in the body.

The Devotional - JAS006

The Devotional

Comment:

This is one of those things that causes me a lot of tribulation and I do not think that I am alone in this. Body language and eye contact often speak louder than words; if in a conversation with several people (at least three) and you make a comment to the group and one answers. So far so good, yet when that person answers and directly speaks to others avoiding meaningful contact with you, I find this demeaning. It is as though the others exist and you don’t, at least this is the impression I get when another is demonstrating partiality or favor to others, rather than being equally interested in the group as a whole. This is annoying in secular groups because you can see and determine the pecking order develop. But being isolated from participation in and among the brothers and sisters of the family of God can be seen as purposely ignorant and hurtful. The apostle James will have something to say about this in chapter two of his epistle, and don’t forget this epistle is scripture in the New Testament Church.

Challenge: James 2:1-13

Do we think daily of our faith in Christ? Or do we just truck along in our daily routines with the LORD Jesus Christ in the back seat, just along for the ride so to speak. I think that more often than we would like to admit it, we do not allow the LORD Jesus to be our covering of Righteousness. Thus when we are faced with the trials and temptations of the day, we react in ungodly manners. This reaction may be intentional or it may not, but in trials and temptations if we are not practicing righteousness in the LORD who is our righteousness we are simply ungodly children.

In the church we are especially critical to react when new people show up. We know the passage of scripture we are looking at this morning so in order to be prim and proper we saddle up to the stranger an become overly friendly. If the newcomer is a child of God they will pick up on this phony behavior very quickly and if that person is not a child of God, they will consider this initial meeting as weird.

The pendulum of favoritism is not positioned correctly right from the onset, then when identity is established, we can see the swing as the visiting saint is patted on the back and an excuse to leave is given and off we go to find another new person. The partiality of who one is or who one might be is as relevant in our congregations today as it was in the days of the early church the only difference is that there is difference!

We dishonor one another in most all of our assemblies and truly we know that this should not be, but bad habits do not break easily. Now the apostle uses the rich and the poor to illustrate partiality. Yet today we see this dishonoring of one another in other ways, clothing and apparel are not viewed according to the pocket book these day in the church, but style is. In some churches clothing and dress is mandated from the pulpit.

So partiality remains a stumbling block in most churches in one form or another, such partiality is sin and offends the whole assembly. Those who judge others for their appearance or position cause the whole assembly to smell unwashed from the filth of the world. If we stumble on one point of the law of liberty in Christ we are not the pleasing aroma that the church should be and the whole assembly is guilty in the eyes of the casual observer. The apostle Paul in Ephesians 5:1 and 2 identifies the main problem.

“Therefore be imitators of God as dear children, and walk in (agape) love (not gushy or phony), as Christ also has loved us and give Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling aroma”. Also see 2 Corinthians 2:12-17 as we are not defeated in Christ, we are triumphant and we need to show the world (visitors) that in Christ is VICTORY.