Boasting about tomorrow ~ James 4:13-17

I plan ahead.  If I do not have the next step or two thought out before I get to them, I feel behind and unorganized.  However, God does not work this way.  Ever since I gave Him full rights to my life, I cannot seem to plan anything too far in advance.  He is the ultimate schedule shifter.  James notes, “Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow.”  I have to remind myself of this.  Life throws sudden changes at you.  Yes, I still plan ahead to the best of my ability, but I now make flexible plans instead of rigid ones.  This is one way I submit my life to God, by giving Him free reign to jumble my schedule.  In the end, I trust God has a better idea of what I should do with my life than I do since He sees the entire picture.

The boss ~ James 4:13-17

A man has an idea he wants to put into action at work.  The man confronts his boss with the idea, and the boss says he will think and get back to him.  After time passes, the man gets impatient and goes ahead with his idea since he has not heard from his boss.  However, as the idea begins to take off, the boss steps in and stops the process.  The boss questions the man why he went ahead with the idea without waiting for an answer?  The man replied he was tired of waiting.  Do we treat God like this?  We are the man, and God is the boss.  Do we come to God with prayer and take action without waiting for His answer?  Do we even ask God before we begin?  James tells us to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”  Yes, we are capable of doing things apart from God, but God can step in at any time.  It is better to do things in-line with God from the beginning.

What we don’t do ~ James 4:13-17

James 4:17 tells us that if someone knows what is good, but doesn’t do it then that person is sinning.  We are used to thinking about sin as something wrong that we do.  But it is much more than that.  Often the greatest evils  of all aren’t just the wrongs that men do, but when good men do nothing.  Time and time again in the Old Testament we see God becoming angry with Israel because they oppress the poor instead of helping them.  Even though they are going through the motions in church, they do not do God’s will, and he says that their hearts are far from him.  James continues this theme, and it is peppered all over his little book.  Are we really that different than the ancient Israelites?  I don’t think so.  We may not always think about it, but perhaps, when I walked right on by someone who dropped his books on the ground and scattered papers everywhere, I was closer to sin than I thought.  Apathy is the opposite of love far more than hate could ever be.

 

by Josh

Annie knows ~ James 4:13-17

Why do we sometimes expect to have a great day but it turns out lousy, or we expect to have a lousy day but it turns out great? James 4:14-15 says “Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.’” If you’ve ever experienced mist you know that it is an intriguing phenomenon. One minute it’s so thick that you can’t see your hand in front of your face and the next it’s gone and you can see for miles. Why? Because God’s in control, telling it when to come and go, just like he controls the mist in your life. He is the only one who can plan EXACTLY how your day is going to go, so talk to him and accept his design- whatever it may be. Say to yourself “The sun’ll come out tomorrow. So ya gotta hang on ‘til tomorrow. Come what may tomorrow! Tomorrow! I love ya tomorrow! You’re always a day away!”

by Tina

Flirting with the judgment line ~ James 4:1-12

In chapter one, James was on our case about how we must do what we hear in the Word.  In chapter four, he clarifies this idea a bit more because, apparently, some people were confused about what “doing” the Word actually meant.  James tells us not to speak evil against a brother.  Doing so is judging our brother, and judging our brother is judging the law.  James stresses, “But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge.”  Do you know anyone who lives as though their calling in life is pointing out every flaw in other people?  I do.  What we often forget is pointing out someone’s flaws is not “doing” the law.  It actually flirts with the line of judging them.  Yes, we are to confront our brothers and hold them accountable, but we are to do this in love not judgment.

Submit yourselves to God ~ James 4:1-12

Self-control.  Do we have any?  How often do we let our environment define us and what we do?  How often do we let an event not to our liking make us angry?  When we are angry, do we quarrel and fight with those who made us angry?  Do we speak badly of those who do us wrong when they are not present?  When they are?  This is not how God intends us to be.  He commands that we model self-control.  We are to control our anger, control our speech, control how much we let the world rub off on us.  The devil uses these things to separate us from God, but James explains, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”  He will flee from you!  That sounds like the ending to a victorious battle; the enemy runs away.  God demands humility and submission from us; He will take care of the rest.

God vs. the genie ~ James 4:1-12

Prayer.  God answers prayer, right?  Isn’t that what we’ve been taught in Sunday school?  James says something different though.  He starts out by saying the reason we don’t receive things from God is because we are not asking God for these things.  That does not challenge what I grew up learning.  However, James then states that even when we ask, we do not receive because we ask wrongly.  We ask for ourselves, for our benefit.  We sometimes treat God like a genie in a lamp.  He is the all powerful being that must bow to our every whim and fancy.  He is all powerful, but He is not our slave.  He is God, and He can say “No.”  If we truly seek to glorify God with our lives, we should not be using our prayers to benefit ourselves.  We should be using them to enhance our ability to live for God.  

The truth about judging our brother ~ James 4:1-12

James 4:11-12 “Do not speak against one another, brethren. He who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks against the law and judges the law; but if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge.  There is one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and to destroy; but who are you who judge your neighbor?”

What does it mean to speak against one another?  I think that sometimes people have a tendency to think that this means we have to turn a blind eye to everything that goes on in other peoples’ lives.  There is a difference between helping someone who stumbles, and speaking out against a brother.  It is one thing to lend a helping hand, or even offer discipline to someone who struggles.  It is quite something else to speak evil against a brother, and to exclude him from the faithful.  We all struggle.  We are all workers, doers.  None of us is the judge.  None of us truly understands the law in fullness.  Only Christ does.  It is not right for us to usurp his place as judge.

by Josh

Devilholics Anonymous ~ James 4:1-12

12 Suggested Steps of Devilholics Anonymous
1. Admit we are powerless over the devil.
2. Believe that a power greater than ourselves can restore our sanity.
3. Make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to God.
4. Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admit to God, to ourselves and to others our wrongs.
6. Be ready to have God remove all defects of character.
7. Humbly ask Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Become willing to make amends with all persons we have harmed.
9. Make direct amends wherever possible, except when to do so would bring injury.
10. Continue to take personal inventory and promptly admit our wrongs.
11. Seek through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. After having a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, try to carry this message to devilholics, and to practice these principles in all affairs.
James 4:7 says to “resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” This is not a light task, just as resisting alcohol isn’t easy for alcoholics. It’s a very long process, one that will only ever get easier but never be complete, but by resisting the devil we are drawing near to God. James 4:8 says “Come near to God and he will come near to you.” What more could a devilholic want?

by Tina

First, it’s Pure

James 3:17 ESV
17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.  

The wisdom that comes from God is, before all things, pure. God is pure (I John 3:3) and therefore, all things that come from Him, including wisdom, is pure.

Wisdom that is pure will reveal itself in the our conduct. If we are peaceful and gentle, we have pure wisdom. If we are reasonable, then we are acting with pure wisdom. If our lives bear are marked by mercy and good fruit, then we have purity of wisdom. If we treat others impartially and with sincerity, then purity of wisdom is in our lives.

Check your lives…are they marked by purity? If not, then they will not be marked by peace or gentleness or reason or marcy or good fruit or impartiality or sincerity.