We gather in a comfortable common place with others and form a community called church. We sing from our hearts to God, listen to His Word spoken, and say we believe in Jesus who is responsible for our salvation and who called us to imitate His love to others. Because of this love of God in us, we are commanded and joyfully committed to reconcile to God through Jesus. We are then given the ministry from God of helping others reconcile to Him, too.
What could go wrong?
“When Christian believer gather in churches, everything that can go wrong sooner or later does. Outsiders, on observing this, conclude that there is nothing to the religion business except, perhaps, business—and dishonest business at that. Insiders see it differently. Just as a hospital collects the sick under one roof and labels them as such, the church collects sinners. Many of the people outside the hospital are every bit as sick as the ones inside, but their illnesses are either undiagnosed or disguised. It’s similar with sinners outside the church.”
“So Christian churches are not, as a rule, model communities of good behavior. They are, rather, places where human misbehavior is brought out in the open, faced, and dealt with.”
“The letter of James shows one of the church’s early pastors skillfully going about his work of confronting, diagnosing, and dealing with areas of misbelief and misbehavior that had turned up in congregations committed to his care. Deep and living wisdom is on display here, wisdom both rare and essential. Wisdom is not primarily knowing the truth, although it certainly includes that; it is skill in living. For, what good is a truth if we don’t know how to live it? What good is an intention if we can’t sustain it?”
“According to church traditions, James carried the nickname “Old Camel Knees” because of thick calluses built up on his knees from many years of determined prayer. The prayer is foundational to the wisdom. Prayer is ALWAYS foundation to wisdom.” –Eugene Peterson, Intro to James, The Message Bible
James 1, The Message
I, James, am a slave of God and the Master Jesus, writing to the twelve tribes scattered to Kingdom Come: Hello!
Faith Under Pressure
2-4 Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.
5-8 If you don’t know what you’re doing, pray to the Father. He loves to help. You’ll get his help, and won’t be condescended to when you ask for it. Ask boldly, believingly, without a second thought. People who “worry their prayers” are like wind-whipped waves. Don’t think you’re going to get anything from the Master that way, adrift at sea, keeping all your options open.
9-11 When down-and-outers get a break, cheer! And when the arrogant rich are brought down to size, cheer! Prosperity is as short-lived as a wildflower, so don’t ever count on it. You know that as soon as the sun rises, pouring down its scorching heat, the flower withers. Its petals wilt and, before you know it, that beautiful face is a barren stem. Well, that’s a picture of the “prosperous life.” At the very moment everyone is looking on in admiration, it fades away to nothing.
12 Anyone who meets a testing challenge head-on and manages to stick it out is mighty fortunate. For such persons loyally in love with God, the reward is life and more life.
13-15 Don’t let anyone under pressure to give in to evil say, “God is trying to trip me up.” God is impervious to evil, and puts evil in no one’s way. The temptation to give in to evil comes from us and only us. We have no one to blame but the leering, seducing flare-up of our own lust. Lust gets pregnant, and has a baby: sin! Sin grows up to adulthood, and becomes a real killer.
16-18 So, my very dear friends, don’t get thrown off course. Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light. There is nothing deceitful in God, nothing two-faced, nothing fickle. He brought us to life using the true Word, showing us off as the crown of all his creatures.
Act on What You Hear
19-21 Post this at all the intersections, dear friends: Lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue, and let anger straggle along in the rear. God’s righteousness doesn’t grow from human anger. So throw all spoiled virtue and cancerous evil in the garbage. In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life.
22-24 Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you are a listener when you are anything but, letting the Word go in one ear and out the other. Act on what you hear! Those who hear and don’t act are like those who glance in the mirror, walk away, and two minutes later have no idea who they are, what they look like.
25 But whoever catches a glimpse of the revealed counsel of God—the free life!—even out of the corner of his eye, and sticks with it, is no distracted scatterbrain but a man or woman of action. That person will find delight and affirmation in the action.
26-27 Anyone who sets himself up as “religious” by talking a good game is self-deceived. This kind of religion is hot air and only hot air. Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world.
WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?
Walk the talk! When God leads, follow his direction.
How? I have discovered that following God’s Holy Spirit prompting is much simpler than we think. Living the Truth is not necessarily a grand jester but a whisper from God’s heart to ours. Who hasn’t had the experience of suddenly having a particular person come to mind? That’s God! He will place a person in our minds for reasons we might not know but can help. We must stop to pray for them immediately on their behalf in response to God! “Act on what we hear,” says James.
In other moments, God’s Holy Spirit will give us simple action idea to do to encourage someone who is facing a challenging circumstance. Sometimes, God tells us to sit with a family while their loved one is in surgery. Maybe it is sharing a meal with those in need without waiting on a committee’s sanctioned plan. Wherever, whenever, and however God calls us, He will provide a way to accomplish His will through us to help others know Him and be reconnected (reconciled) to Him. Serving is a gift from God to us as a privilege to join Him in His work of reconciliation of relationships. Great are these gifts to us!
God never runs out of gifts to serve and help others. James teaches us that all the gifts God gives to us are used to gift others so they will see the Light of His love in us and be drawn to His Light, too! “So, my very dear friends, don’t get thrown off course. Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light.” All comes from God, our Father, the only wise and good God.
Act on what you hear. God will give us all we need in the action.
Lord,
Thank you for James who deals with our human temptation of self satisfaction and guides to reach out to others in response too God’s leading. Cleanse our hearts of thinking only of ourselves, renew our minds and transform our behaviors, refresh our souls with your new mercies, and restore the joy of your salvation at work within us. May we love others like you love us. May they know we truly believe what you say as they see our love for you and each other.
In Jesus Name, Amen
“In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life.” –James, Old Camel Knees
Daily Manna (Coffee with Jesus) 