Good morning....

Finding Friends In this Big and Complicated world is truly a Magical thing….. But for me Finding U is not only a Magic… It's a Blessing… So when I count my Blessings, I will count you Twice….......

Have A Blessed Day!!!

James 5:16-20

"16 Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects. 17 Elijah was a man of like nature with ourselves and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. 18 Then he prayed again and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth its fruit. 19 My brethren, if any one among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, 20 let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins."

This section is a continuation of the one we looked at previously. In fact, it seems to me that James began the conclusion of this letter back in verse 7 of chapter 5 when he encouraged his readers to "be patient ... until the coming of the Lord." As I have said before, James is writing this letter to Christians who are encountering a variety of trials in their lives. They are finding that their faith in God does not keep them from having to deal with difficult and often very painful circumstances. James does not write them to tell them how to avoid all trials and live a victorious, pain-free life. He assumes that the trials are going to come. James is writing to help his readers to know how to go through the trials that are inevitable in a broken and hurting world.

The trials we go through essentially tempt us to be double-minded about God. We know He is loving and good so when we find ourselves in difficulties, we get confused. It is not always clear to us why we are having these struggles and so we begin to wonder if God has abandoned us. Or, we may question whether He really is all that loving and good after all, or whether it is just that he doesn't care about us in particular.

It is this doublemindedness that James is concerned about. He wants his readers to know that God is actually present, gracious, and always able to redeem. He turns their focus away from their trials to face their heavenly Father who is at work in the midst of their trials to give them more of His life, peace, and joy. Focusing on their present circumstances cannot tell them who God is or assist them in counting on Him more. He wants to enable them to turn their eyes towards the triune God and to allow Him to draw out their faith. So throughout the letter James sets before His readers the wonderful character of God: that He is the generous giver of all good gifts, the Father of lights, the One who cannot be tempted by evil and so never tempts us with such, the One who ultimately is leading us through these difficult days to make us become people who are complete and lacking in nothing.

In verse 7 of chapter 5, James encourages his readers to be patient. It looks like God will not necessarily take us through our trials quickly. As we struggle through some situations over a very long period of time, the temptation to be doubleminded about God can grow. Where is He? we may wonder. Why hasn't He fixed this by now? It is hard when looking at our difficulties to be patient. James knows that. Notice that he does not encourage them to work up their patience from sheer willpower. Once again He reminds them of the truth about God. God is at hand, He is indeed present, and His presence is the greater reality--the reality that enables us to be patient.

Why is it that the prayers of the righteous person are powerful? Because this person knows that it is God they are completely dependent on and not themselves. They are trusting God to be their Savior, the One who gives generously and seeks our perfection. So their prayers are going to be seeking God's great intentions instead of their own. They are not praying for their own wills to be done. In other words, a righteous man or woman is not praying in a doubleminded way.

James wants to make sure his readers understand this statement about the prayers of a righteous person so he illustrates it with a story of Elijah. First he tells them that Elijah "was a man of like nature with ourselves..." Elijah was not righteous "in himself," his nature was like ours. Any righteousness he exhibited was in his confidence in the God he prayed to. And look what his prayers brought about. First there was no rain for 3 years and 6 months, and then he prayed again that there was rain! His prayers were not his ability to put pressure on God to do something God did not really want to do. No, rather through his prayers he was caught up and given the privilege to participate in God's work, in what God was doing. God graciously has us participate in His wonderful work. And James wants his readers to have hope and confidence that God desires to do His great and good will and wants us to get invovled through our prayers of faith in Him.

As he brings his letter to an end, James finally turns to the situation of a believer who has wandered away from the truth. This is someone who allowed his or her doublemindedness about God to grow to the point that he or she is no longer acting out of any confidence in God, but instead is motivated out of fear, greed, anger, etc. Now here is a situation where we are truly tempted to lose trust in God. We wonder if there is any thing that can be done for such a person. Is there any hope? Certainly now, we have come to the point where even God gives up and changes His mind and purpose and heart.

Notice how tenderly and hopefully James writes these sentences. He begins with his ofted used address "brethren." He does not write them from a distance, as a master or a teacher, but intimately connected, as a brother. "If any one among you wanders from the truth and some one brings him back..." Is there any point in pursuing those who have turned away from the God they once trusted in? James wants his flock to know that here too God is continuing to be at work, and their participating in His work of redemption can have "great effects," as with the prayers of the righteous one. Will it make any difference? James says yes! It "will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins." God allows us to be a part of all the wonderful things He is doing, even for those who have turned away from Him.

What does all this mean? James is turning the eyes of His readers back to their very active, living, redeeming, life-giving God. In the midst of long and difficult trials or just the everyday frustrations and anxieties, the pains of broken relationships or the mourning over various missed opportunities, God is at work. While we may be tempted to doubt and disbelief, God remains faithful to Himself and therefore to us. He is not doubleminded about us. So James invites his readers again to gaze on this triune God, to turn our focus away from the circumstances toward our heavenly Father in the midst of our circumstances, counting it up as joy for the day when we will stand before Him "perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." Until then, we are able to be patient in hope and can turn all things over to Him in prayer.

Life here is a life full of evidence that we do not fully live in the good life our generous heavenly Father intends. Sometimes our trials are the constant frustrations of everyday life and at other times they are so big, they threaten to overcome us. Our longing for the day when we will be beyond all these struggles grows as we realize that in this life, trials will continue to be a part of our experience. It is so very easy to lose sight of God's character and purposes when life is not going the way we believe it should. It is tempting to draw conclusions about God based on our current difficulties. But this is what James writes his letter to prevent. Our trust in God can only grow as we look again at who He truly is and find Him able to be present and active in the midst of the struggles we are facing.

I hope that God brings to mind James' words to us again and again as we continue to live here in this changing, challenging and broken world waiting for the fullness of its promised redemption.

James 5:13-15

"13 Is any one among you suffering? Let him pray. Is any cheerful? Let him sing praise. 14 Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; 15 and the prayer of faith will save the sick man, and the Lord will raise him up; and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven."

This section actually forms a whole piece with the rest of this letter, but I thought it would be easier to break it up into two parts. James is drawing his pastoral letter to a close. What does he want to leave his readers with as he finishes up? In the midst of their various struggles, what is the last thing he wants them to hear from him?

At the beginning of the letter, James encourages his readers to see that the trials they are facing are all opportunities for their trust in God to grow and deepen. He tells them that God's intention is for their faith in Him to become a steadfast, deep and abiding confidence in their heavenly Father that will grow until they are "perfect and complete, lacking in nothing" (1:4).

Now James wraps up his letter by reminding his readers how to participate in God's work to grow their love and trust in Him. How does James do this: he calls his readers to prayer. In the immediately preceding section, he spoke to them of the nearness of God. He said they can be patient in the midst of their lives here on earth because "the coming of the Lord is at hand." God is here, with us, present in our midst. The reality of His nearness enables us to be steadfast.

So how do we grow in our ability to be patient, to know and count on the nearness of our heavenly Father? We pray to Him, whatever our current circumstances are. "Is any one among you suffering?" James asks. "Let him pray." Remember, suffering is where James started this letter: "Count it all joy, my brethren, when you meet various trials..."(1:2). Here, as in the beginning, James has in mind the same idea which includes any and all painful situations. "Is any one among you suffering?" He doesn't qualify what kind of suffering it is or its severity. It is enough only that one is suffering.

And what are we to do when we are suffering? We are to pray. We are to turn our situation and all of our anxieties, questions, doubts, and struggles over to the good God James has been pointing us to throughout this letter. He is the God who desires our perfection and completion (1:4), who gives generously without reproach (1:5), the source of all good gifts (1:17), who gives grace to the humble (4:6), and who is always at hand (5:8), nearer than the very trials we are going through.

What James is doing here is assuring his readers that it is God's very character to be intimately concerned with their sufferings. When we suffer we wonder and are even tempted to think that God is absent or indifferent. James has been assuring his readers and continues to assure them that this is not the case. When we are suffering the most immediate, practical, and effective thing we can do is to pray because our suffering does not mean God has turned against us and abandoned us.

Prayer reminds us of God's character and nearness. Prayer enables us to hand over again to God what only He can redeem and transform. Prayer puts us where we can receive His peace and comfort. Notice that James does not outline for them certain principles to live by to alleviate their suffering. He simply tells them to pray, to communicate with the living God. This is the first thing we are to do, before decisions are made or actions taken.

Next James considers those who find themselves currently in a situation that is happy, contented. "Is any cheerful?" Oddly enough, when suffering is alleviated we can also be tempted to wander from God's immediate presence! We may fail to see the connection between God and our happy situation. We may sense no immediate need for God. But, again James reminds his readers of the true reality of their circumstances. God is the source of all good and perfect gifts, James has told them in the first chapter. Here James says that the appropriate response to happiness is to praise God. God has everything to do with the blessings we receive. To not praise Him is to miss the opportunity to "receive the Giver with the Gift" as George MacDonald would say. Our happiness is not full and complete when we fail to recognize the One who is giving to us. Thanksgiving completes and perfects the joy of everything good.

Now James turns to physical illness. "Is any among you sick?" This illness may or may not have a direct connection to personal sin. But James does consider this possibility as well. So, it seems to me that here James is dealing with a lack of wholeness or health, both physically and spiritually. He deals first and foremost with physical disease possibly because we may be tempted to believe God is less concerned with that than He is with spiritual disease. James spends more time dealing with this concern than the previous two--and I think this is because he wants to emphasize to his readers that God is indeed present, active, and loving when we are physically broken and in pain. It is not a sign of God's rejection.

This section of James's letter has received a lot of attention over the years and is familiar to all of us. Verse 15 is often the focus because of the puzzle over the promise offered in it. I know that you all have stories of prayers for someone's healing that seemed to go unanswered. We know that God does not always bring someone back to full health the way we are hoping when we pray. So, what is James saying here? Let's work our way through the passage.

First, James calls his readers to prayer again. But it is interesting to me that James encourages his readers to seek out prayer from others on their behalf. Apparently there are times when it is good, right, and appropriate to ask others to come over and pray for you. We are to place ourselves in the position of receiving the prayers of others for us. It is interesting to me that God's intention for us is that not only are we to receive our lives, peace, identities, etc. from Him but that we may also receive it from Him through one another.

Second, James tells his readers to call specifically on the elders of the church to do the praying. We are to ask those who are more mature in the faith, who have a ministry of shepherding us to pray over us, on our behalf. Why is that? Is it because God is more willing to listen to them, that we have a better chance of success with them?

It may be the case that when we are suffering some illness we will feel alienated not only from God, but from the church and so it's leaders as well. We may be tempted to think that those more spiritual will not want to have anything to do with us. Our illness, we think, indicates spiritual failure and so we don't really belong to the church. James says, no, you belong, go to the elders, they are there to minister to you the grace of God. Don't stay away, but come together. Don't let illness separate you from God or His people.

James then goes on and describes their prayer as "the prayer of faith" and says that it will "save the sick man, and the Lord will raise him up..." What is this "prayer of faith?" Do the elders have more faith than others? Is God looking for a certain amount of faith before He will work? What is faith anyway? Maybe we can begin to get an answer by looking as what this prayer of faith results in.

James says it will "save the sick man, and the Lord will raise him up; and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven." What does James mean, "save" and how is it related to being sick? The word here translated "save" is a word James has used earlier in this letter. The Greek word is a rich one with several related meanings. It includes the idea of healing and wholeness as well as rescue. So it can have an immediate and temporal as well as a spiritual and eternal sense. In 1:21 James encourages his readers to receive the implanted word "which is able to save your souls." In 4:12 James reminds them that there is one lawgiver and judge, "he who is able to save and to destroy." Since James uses this word here in this passage and follows it with "the Lord will raise him up" it would seem that James is using this word with its broader meanings included. Since James includes the idea of being forgiven of sin, if there are sins involved, what he means by "saved" clearly includes the spiritual dimension. Saved then seems to cover a wide range of outcomes including both the physical and the spiritual dimensions.

James is drawing out what God is doing with "the prayer of faith." God is going to save, raise up, and forgive. Is God concerned with brokenness, weakness, pain, sin? Absolutely! God is Savior--this is Who He is. His will is to bring about complete restoration, wholeness, healing. Remember chapter one? He purifying or testing of our faith is to make us "perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." This is what He desires for us, what it means for us to be the first fruits of His creation. We can count on Him for our complete redemption and healing, for His raising us up, because this is His heart.

Now, back to the question of what is "the prayer of faith?" Is James concerned about some amount of faith that some people have. I don't think so. The prayer of faith is one that hands all over to the Savior God, confident in His character and purposes rather than counting on the strength of one's own believing. Faith always has an object outside of and beyond one's self. In the Bible we are always directed to put our faith in something, or rather Someone! The object of our faith is the God in whom we trust We are never directed to put faith in our faith, in how strongly we trust. As we mature, our trust grows and fits more nearly with who we see God to truly be. We trust Him to be true to Himself, and our requests become more reflective of what we know He is up to. So, the elders are those who pray as we all ought to pray: in knowledge and confidence that God truly is Savior and that His will is to bring about salvation, wholeness, complete health. Their prayer reflects a maturity in their knowledge of who God is, not a confidence who they think they are or what they can do.

And James says that God will work through these prayers. God is intimately concerned about healing the brokenness of our lives. We can count on Him to be our salvation, to bring complete health into our lives. This doesn't necessarily mean that we will see immediate healing the way we want it in each situation brought before the elders. But we can know where ultimate healing resides and that in the end, ultimate healing will be given--a healing that death will not be able to take away because it is beyond death. No illness, pain, suffering, dysfunction, or sin has the final say in our lives.

This passage reminds us to see the reality of God's connection to everything in our lives, and to turn to Him in all circumstances trusting in His good character and purposes. Sometimes we want to deal with a situation in our lives by applying principles or making plans without going back to our vital and necessary connection to the real and present God. These past two weeks we went camping for our vacation. As often happens, there were moments went tempers wore a bit thin and we were wrestling with how our children were treating each other. We decided to have a family meeting and my first impulse was to go over how to treat each other and my expectations for the rest of our time together. Gary, however, wanted to remind us all of God's presence and work. He asked the children to consider whether they trusted that God was for them and whether He was good and faithful when He made us a family. Could we count on Him to bless us because we were together, each of us a part of the family He created? Could our actions towards each other reflect our trust that God was faithful to our family and at work to make us all He created us to be? I appreciate again being reminded of the richness I can know when I take the time to see how God is connected to all of my life.

I have been noticing over these past weeks as I have mulled over this passage that I can grow in the habit of turning each and every concern consciously to God in prayer. Am I struggling with a relationship? I can pray for the person with whom I am dealing. Is the day looking too crazy? I can begin on my knees handing each piece to my living heavenly Father. He is able to handle all the pieces far better than I can.

James 5:7-12

"7 Be patient, therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. Behold, the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient over it until it receives the early and the late rain. 8 You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. 9 Do not grumble, brethren against one another, that you may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing at the doors. 10 As an example of suffering and patience, brethren, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. 11 Behold, we call those happy who were steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful. 12 But above all, my brethren, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath, but let your yes be yes and your no be no, that you my not fall under condemnation."

In 4:11-5:6 James warns his readers against reacting to the suffering of their present circumstances by speaking evil against one another, attempting to gain control over their lives by making plans without God, and by clinging to accumulated wealth as if it could give them the life and peace they crave. Now James concludes this long section by encouraging his readers to be patient.

James is returning to where he began his letter. In his opening lines, he encourages his readers to be counting their current trials as joy because this testing of their faith "produces steadfastness," that is steadfastness of faith. It is this steadfastness of faith, this turning to God and counting on Him through all of our ups and downs that leads to our being, in the end, "perfect and complete, lacking in nothing."

So now James speaks again of our need to wait on God here in this section. There is an interesting pattern here. There are two sections on patience, each followed by a warning against sins of the tongue. This is what it looks like:

-Be patient--example: like the farmer, 5:7&8

-Do not grumble against one another, 5:9

-Look at the steadfastness and patience of the prophets and Job, 5:10 &11

-Do not swear, but let your yes be yes and your no be no, 5:12

Let's work our way through each section. Notice that James begins the section with the word "therefore." As I pointed out, James is tying this to the previous section. This is his conclusion to his warnings just before. Therefore, since there is no future in speaking against each other, making plans on your own, or clinging to your wealth, what are you to do when you are pressed and discouraged in the midst of ongoing or difficult trials? You are to be patient "until the coming of the Lord."

So, we are to fix our eyes on Jesus' return. This is to be the reality that frames our present experience, that gives us the perspective to live in our current situations. And as James says later in verse 8, "the coming of the Lord is at hand." Does this mean that James thought Jesus would return in his lifetime and that he was wrong? How can we believe that the Lord's coming is "at hand" when this was written almost 2000 years ago? It means that Jesus' coming is always, eternally at hand, that His coming back is closer, more real to us than the next event in our lives. It is the really real around which we orient our lives. His coming truly has been at hand throughout Christian history.

But what do we usually regard as being most at hand to us? It may seem like our immediate difficulties or our uncertain financial or relational futures. But this is not so. We can be patient for the Lord's coming is the certain and near future of our lives. This is the most likely event to take place: it is certain that He is near and that He will indeed come. Nothing can stop this event.

What does it mean to be patient? Well, James fills this out as he continues through the passage. James uses the illustration of the farmer to indicate that patience is connected to waiting. The farmer waits for "the precious fruit of the earth" and in this waiting, he is patient "over it until it receives the early and the late rain." The farmer is waiting for the fruit. This is what he has his mind set upon when he is planting, when he is waiting. Knowing that it is coming, he is able to be patient through not only the early but the late rain. It may seem, if he only looks at the time passing or considers the dreariness of more rain, that this fruit may never come at all. But the farmer doesn't focus on these things. He is not waiting for the rain, but for the fruit. We are waiting for the Lord's coming, a reality that is "at hand." Focusing on, remembering this truth can allow us to be patient through the "early" struggles and those still to come. There will be a harvest! The Lord guarantees it.

Being patient, James goes on to say, involves establishing our hearts. Being patient is an action of faith. It is something we take up, something we actively choose. Patience, then, is not just an absence of anxiety, something we can be when there is nothing to be anxious about. We choose to trust that God is a generous giver and the source of all good gifts. We choose to count on the fact that God is not tempting us in the midst of our trials. And, we establish our hearts in the fact that His coming is indeed near and that we are going to be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

James illustrates the point that being patient is an act of faith in verse 10, when he turns his readers attention to the prophets who are examples of "suffering and patience." Trusting in, waiting on God here and now, with whatever we are facing can and often does involve suffering. I know so many people right now who are facing major trials such as loss of a job, or serious illness. There is a great deal of suffering in this world. And there is a kind of suffering to letting go of our plans and attempts at control and instead handing everything wholeheartedly over to God. It is not easy and automatic, is it?

But James is very encouraging. He goes on to say that "we call those happy who are steadfast." We do? Why? I would have thought he would say that we call those happy who are not suffering, who have no trials to deal with. But no, James mentions those who are steadfast in their faith, those whose hearts are truly established in the Triune God. And we know that this is true. How wonderful to remain patient in the truth, comforted by God and able to receive His peace and presence in the midst of whatever we are going through. Truly these are people able to keep their circumstances from robbing them of the joy and peace that is ours always in Christ Jesus.

James mentions Job at this point, an interesting choice for an illustration. Why? Because Job was steadfast in His counting on God to be the One who would answer Him in the face of terrible suffering and loss. Job's steadfastness certainly did not arise from focusing on his circumstances, but on the character of the God he knew--My Redeemer.

Lastly James reminds his readers that they "have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful." What is God up to? Why are we going through these things? What will be the end result of them? James reminds us of the heart of God. Who is He? He is the compassionate and merciful One. This is what He is up to. Whatever we are dealing with, we can count on the fact that God's purposes for us come from His great compassion and mercy. We turn our eyes to this One and away from our circumstances to feed on and grow in this wonderful truth.

But we are not finished with the passage. There are two warnings included in this section and we need now to deal with them. The first one is in verse 9, coming right before James comments on the prophets and Job. Here James warns his readers again not to grumble against one another, and again mentions the Judge. James here seems clearly to be speaking of our tendency to grumble against others in God's family. And it is the same as his earlier warning about speaking evil against or judging one another. Grumbling is dismissing the person with a "final" word of judgment from us. It would seem that establishing our hearts for the Lord's coming and grumbling against our sisters and brothers are incompatible. And this makes great sense.

When we are grumbling against one another, our focus is not on God's reality and work in our lives but on the inequalities we see as we focus on those around us. It's not that there don't seem to be things to grumble about. It is easy to find lots of reasons to grumble at the good fortunes or bad decisions or extravagances, etc. of our sisters and brothers. James, I notice, does not qualify this. He doesn't say "don't grumble unless you have a good reason to." As soon as we are grumbling, we are unable to receive God's peace at that time, and we are unable to receive our brother or sister as a blessing. We are not able to see them as God does.

We are not to grumble that we "may not be judged." In fact, James goes on to say, "behold, the Judge is standing at the doors." Like the section preceding this one on the coming of the Lord, James emphasizes the nearness of God. God is near so that He sees any and every injustice. Because the God who sees is near we can count on Him to put everything right, sooner or later. He is very aware of all wrongs all injustices. We need not grumble or deliver God’s final word of judgment as if God were blind or absent or uncaring.

When we grumble, it shows we are not content with God's work in our lives and in those around us. Instead of turning it over to God, we speak evil against others and so lose our true perspective on the situation. We act as if God is distant and uncaring. But the truth is that He isn't--He is always with us, present in our lives. If we refuse to give up our judgments without mercy of others, God judges us in the same manner. When we refuse to extend mercy to others, we cannot receive God's mercy extended to us. Furthermore, when we grumble against one another, we are not living in the wonderful truth that God never grumbles about us. Have you thought about that?

The second warning comes at the end of the section. Here James strongly warns against using oaths to back up our words. Instead, he tells his readers to "let your yes be yes and your no be no..." At the time James was writing, people often backed up their words by swearing to something. The person taking the oath would take it more or less seriously depending on what they were swearing by. Basically, what it came down to is that one could not trust that person's word. One could not be sure that person would come through at all.

We can still do this today even if we do not use oaths anymore. We can say "yes" but mean only that we will consider it as one option. My son, Greg, recently encountered this problem. He invited a friend over for the next day and was told that that would be fine, and his friend would call the next morning just to confirm. Well, no call came. Finally, in the early afternoon, Greg called only to find the friend unavailable to talk to. An hour or so later Greg heard from the mother explaining that her son got up really late and moped around for a while and now had chores to finish and was really unsure when he would call! Meanwhile Greg had cleaned his room and planned all morning for the time he would spend with his friend. They had said "yes" but had made no effort to make it happen. They let their circumstances decide whether they would keep their word.

We need to be careful of saying yes lightly--just to sound willing or because we hope somehow that if we say yes it will work out in the end. When we say yes, others begin to work and act as if that is the case. This is actually very similar to the section at the end of chapter 4 about making plans. We are not to make plans outside of God's real leading. We are not to say yes without prayer and consideration of God's work in the situation. Then our yes is an act of trust in God--that He will enable us to fulfill our commitment. That doesn't mean that even then sometimes things get in the way, but we have set ourselves, with God's grace, to be faithful to our word.

When we are not letting our yes be yes and our no be no, we are doubleminded. And this does not reflect God's deepest character. God is never doubleminded about us. With God, we can always trust that His yes is yes and His no is no. He is indeed the "Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change."(1:17) How wonderful to have a God who we can so fully trust, and how wonderful that He is making us more and more people of integrity like Him.

Throughout this section James repeatedly calls his readers "brethren," i.e. brothers and sisters. This is a very intimate and encouraging passage. James call to them to be patient is embedded in reminders of the nearness and compassionate purposes of our triune God. His being "at hand" is the really real upon which our lives our are founded. I hope God uses these words to enable you to more fully rest in and wait on Him today.

James 5:1-6

"1 Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. 2 Your riches have rotted and you garments are moth-eaten. 3 Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure for the last days. 4 Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud cry out; and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. 5 You have lived on the earth in luxury and in pleasure; you have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. 6 You have condemned, you have killed the righteous man; he does not resist you."

I believe this section actually forms a piece with the previous section. And all of this scripture follows the section in chapter 4, vs. 4-10. In that section, James reminds his readers that "friendship with the world is enmity with God." When we seek to gain our joy, life, identity, success, etc. from the world we are at odds with God and what He desires to give us. In v. 7 of chapter 4 James says "Submit yourselves therefore to God..." and in v. 8 he assures his readers that when you "draw near to God and he will draw near to you."

As I have said before, the struggles that life brings us and that we bring on ourselves all become trials of faith. When we are struggling with something in our lives or something in the lives of those we love, the deepest issue is always about God: "Is God here? Does He care? Is He able to work even at this painful time in my life?" I think that the main reason it becomes difficult to trust God is that we have deep expectations about how God should handle our broken lives and we want to tell Him that we will trust Him in exchange for Him taking care of things the way we want Him to. These expectations make it very hard to trust God--they get in the way of our turning our lives over to Him for Him to work as He sees fit. I think I am often willing to endure unpleasant situations with the hope that they will be over very soon, in a week or a month. I almost hold my breath, waiting for life to return to "normal." I am not then living through the trial by faith, by counting on God to give me His life, love, and comfort in the midst of the time. I am simply trying to will my way through it.

So James tells his readers to humble themselves before God and to draw near to Him. This means learning to turn the whole thing over to God, including how we want it resolved. It doesn't mean that we don't still have hopes about the eventual outcome, but that our highest hope and confidence is in our heavenly Father working His good purposes here and that He is not thrawted in His ability to work His wonderful will in these adverse circumstances. We draw near to God in order to know the peace and joy of His drawing near to us--here and now.

James then turns to three things that were getting in his readers' way of trusting fully in God's character and work. The first is the temptation to put down or judge our brothers and sisters. This comes mainly out of jealousy and fear that they are getting a better deal from God than we are, they seem to be having the kind of life we think should be ours.

The second temptation is to make our own plans, without having God lead. I think we do this either because we think God may not be paying close enough attention, so we need to take care of things ourselves, or because we fear what would happen if we really went with God's will--maybe it wouldn't be what we want to happen right now.

The third temptation, which we take up today, is to put our trust in our wealth. Money seems like a security, a firm foundation, in this very uncertain world we live in. Wealth, we think, can provide us with options, with protection, with a secure future. We become tempted to hoard it and to be unwilling to share generously, especially with those who helped us acquire this wealth. Now there are two ways to go through this passage, two perspectives that are important to notice. James is speaking directly to the wealthy, but obviously not assuming everyone in his readership is in this place. There are those who are cheated by the wealthy as well--the laborers whose wages are held back.

James begins this section with the same words that he used to introduce the previous section: "Come now." First it was "you who say..." and now it is "you rich", thus connecting the two sections together. In the previous section, James exposes the folly of thinking that we can make plans for the next year of our lives when we don't know about tomorrow and are nothing more than "a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes." Here James exposes the folly of building your fortress of security out of your wealth. Notice the graphic word pictures James draws for us! He begins by encouraging these wealthy ones in the congregation who are trusting in their wealth to repent, to turn from counting on their money to give them life, to get them out of their struggles, to give them security. He wants them to "weep and howl" because there are miseries coming on them. These miseries are the consequences of foolishly placing their confidence in their wealth--of hoarding it out of fear. Are these things eternal? Will they last? Are they worthy of this confidence? Can they truly make one secure and well? James is very adamant with his "no" to all these questions. All these things that you stack up and keep as your security will rot and rust away and the rust will be evidence against you. Evidence of what? Evidence of where you were placing your trust and life. Evidence of what you have come to worship.

We can know a lot about God and believe or assent to truths about Him, but it becomes more obvious where our true faith lies when we look at how we are living, especially what we are anxious about. What treasure are we really laying up for the last days?(v.3)

James goes on to talk about these rich people's dealing with those who work for them. They are reluctant to share the wealth with those that directly helped them acquire it; they desire to keep as much of it for themselves as they possibly can. Again, James says there is a consequence. What has been done will not remain hidden forever. The injustice done to fellow human beings will be exposed. For those who are the guilty wealthy this is meant to bring about repentance and renewed trust in God. For those who are cheated by others, who are exploited by those attempting to acquire and hoard wealth, this is a note of hope. He is their advocate. God is not absent. He sees and knows the injustices of this world and is committed to setting things right. They (and we) may have to wait a long time to see the justice of God worked out, but we can know that it will happen. Out of faith we can participate in this process here and now, but the final and complete work belongs to our heavenly Father. Only He sees and knows everything and only He can bring about deep and true healing, restoration, and reconciliation.

In verse 5, James describes these wealthy people as ones who "have lived on the earth in luxury and in pleasure..." These are people who have made it their top aim to avoid all suffering if possible, to have themselves pampered and indulged. They are the center of their own world, and their pleasure is their only aim. They have attempted to belong to this earth, to establish their home, their life, and their identity here, as if this was their true home. They are ignoring all the signs that indicate we were made for a home somewhere else. But again, James warns them strongly of the consequence of living this way. Indulging oneself, blessing only yourself, leads not to life, but to death. The protective, selfish, grasping self cannot survive, cannot receive the greater, richer life it was created for. It will go the way of all sin--it will be destroyed so that nothing is left to get in the way of the full, complete, living life Jesus came to give us.

Lastly, James accuses these people of condemning, killing the "righteous man" and this one "does not resist you." What is he talking about? Well, it seems to parallel his comments earlier in v. 4 about the laborers who were exploited. Here also, there is someone who is taken advantage of, indeed who is disposed of for the advantage or convenience of the wealthy. This person is described as "righteous." It could be that the rich were tempted to view themselves as the blessed of God because of their wealth and so they were the “righteous ones.” If so, then James is setting the record straight. The one or ones they have condemned were not deserving of this condemnation, they were righteous. Further, no resistance was put up to this injustice done against him or them.

You can't look at this description of the righteous man, who does not resist and not think of Christ. He is ultimately The Righteous Man, the only truly righteous One--living in right relationship with His heavenly Father. And He was condemned and killed, by us!, and did not resist in order to give us life. I wonder then, if James is saying, that this kind of living for oneself, this building and hoarding of wealth, the refusal to be a channel of blessing but rather only to bless yourself is what killed the righteous One, Jesus. Certainly this terrible self-centeredness is what He came to destroy and rescue us from.

Living here on this earth is hard and often very painful, there is no doubt about it. Often when we struggle, we long for the difficult circumstances to be over. We are almost "holding our breaths" until we can "enjoy" life again. God does not seem to be present and active because the struggle doesn't resolve the way we want or just goes on with no clear end in sight. And at these times we wrestle with the desire to cling to something other than God--something which seems to guarantee security or the alleviation of our sufferings more quickly or at least to simply feel superior to others.

James understands this struggle and wants to help his readers to continue to hand their whole lives over to the "Father of lights"(1:17) James deals with these three temptations we face when in the midst of trials, which is really to say in the midst of living in this broken world. But even in discussing these temptations, James always brings them back to their heavenly Father, reminding them of who He is. In 4:11 and 12, James reminds them they can turn from judging and speaking evil against one another because God is the One who is our judge, the only One who truly knows us and knows our brothers and sisters. We cannot see all that He can see. How silly of us then to speak a word of judgment on another.

In 4:13-17 the reason we can turn from trusting in our own plans is because God knows the future--He is the One who holds it. Next to His solid reality, we are "mists." Finally in today's section, God is the one who is listening to the cries of those treated unjustly. He is never unaware and He is concerned about setting things right. That isn't just what He sometimes does, that is Who He is!

As I have said before, what we need to remember in the midst of longsuffering is that our true heavenly Father knows us, sees us, and is at work to bring about our best. Whatever He is allowing in our lives, He allows it only to redeem it and to redeem us through this time. He holds us and others, our futures and our wealth, in His hands. They are ultimately not in ours. So we can turn again to Him, ready to experience His peace and joy in whatever circumstances we find ourselves dealing with now.

It is right to long for suffering to end because someday it will end once and for all--it will not be a part of the full, rich life we are being prepared to enjoy in and with Him. So our longings, now are not really just to have our momentary struggles ended. Our longings are really for the deep love and belonging we were created for by God. Those longings will not and cannot be fully met here. That is the lesson we continually have to learn. Yet even in our current struggles we can find joy and even count on joy because we anticipate God's leading us through them to that final fullness of life, where we are "perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." Hold on to my own small momentary expectations in the face of that greater final joy? Thank God that He is helping us to grow all the time in our ability to count on Him and the future He has promised we will have with Him.

James 4:11-17

"11 Do not speak evil against one another, brethren. He that speaks evil against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. 12 There is one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you that you judge your neighbor? 13 Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and get gain"; 14 whereas you do not know about tomorrow. What is you life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we shall live and we shall do this or that." 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. 17 Whoever knows what is right to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin."

In the section previous to this one, James tells his readers that the best way to deal with the lives they live in this fallen world is humbly before God. When we humble ourselves, we are not seeking a way to think poorly of ourselves. Rather humility is turning our eyes away from ourselves and on to God. True humility is a self-forgetfulness. After all, we can only know ourselves truly as we know ourselves in Christ. We can receive God's presence, peace, and love only as we focus on Him and turn our lives daily over to Him. When we no longer are busy trying to exalt ourselves or getting others to exalt us but humble ourselves before God, James says in v. 10, God "will exalt you."

When we forget who we really are before God, we are tempted to be jealous and envious of others. We stop meditating on, receiving from God and focus on those around us. We compare our lives with theirs and burn with frustration that we don't have all that they do. But in that process, we have turned from God. We are not living by counting on Him to be the gracious "Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change"(1:17).

Now in this section James speaks of our arrogance when we presume to judge others or to believe that we are in control of our own futures. Again, when we do these things, it is clear that we are not reflecting the truth about our wonderful heavenly Father or about ourselves as His beloved children.

First, James deals with speaking evil against one another and judging one another. James does not intend for us to see these two things--speaking evil and judging--as two totally separate practices. To speak evil against another is to judge them. The kind of judging James has in mind here is when we speak a "final" word about another's character, behavior, or value. We may be dismissing them as a "hopeless case." When we make statements like "he'll never..." or "she always..." then we are in danger of pronouncing judgement. It seems to me that often our jealousy of others can lead us to this place of speaking evil against them. We want to put them down, to get back at them somehow because they seem so much happier or better off than we think we are and we are angry and upset. It makes us feel superior to someone else when we speak as if we know who he or she is and their "real" problem.

James points out how highly presumptuous this attitude is in his next sentence. "He that speaks evil against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law." When we set ourselves up as "the expert" in speaking against another, James says we are actually claiming to be an expert on the very law of God and judging it. Rather than putting ourselves under God’s law along with everyone else, we put ourselves above the law and use it as we see fit to judge others. And once we do this, we are no longer in right relationship with the law or God. Our relationship to God's law is to be people who obey it out of love, trust, and hope in the One who created us and teaches us how we are to live. But we are not trusting in God our Father when we set ourselves up to "know" exactly what is going on with another and so dismiss them with our word of judgment. The only One who truly sees all and knows all and can see into the heart of others is the Lawgiver, "he who is able to save and destroy." Since we do not have ultimate power over life and death, we should be very careful when our words convey "the final word" about another. "But who are you that you judge your neighbor?" James asks his readers.

James points out how highly presumptuous this attitude is in his next sentence. "He that speaks evil against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law." When we set ourselves up as "the expert" in speaking against another, James says we are actually claiming to be an expert on the very law of God and judging it. Rather than putting ourselves under God's law along with everyone else, we put ourselves above the law and use it as we see fit to judge others. And once we do this, we are no longer in right relationship with the law or God. Our relationship to God's law is to be people who obey it out of love, trust, and hope in the One who created us and teaches us how we are to live. But we are not trusting in God our Father when we set ourselves up to "know" exactly what is going on with another and so dismiss them with our word of judgment. The only One who truly sees all and knows all and can see into the heart of others is the Lawgiver, "he who is able to save and destroy." Since we do not have ultimate power over life and death, we should be very careful when our words convey "the final word" about another. "But who are you that you judge your neighbor?" James asks his readers.

I appreciate this word very much. It is funny to me when I stop and think about it--how ridiculous it is that I think I know all of what is going on in someone else's life and that I can analyze them and explain away their behavior. The truth is that I don't even know all of who I am and what makes me behave as I do. I can't even be the judge of myself and I am placing myself in God's shoes when I berate myself as a hopeless case. How great that God alone knows us and can discern the truth about us. And if He still has hope about me or someone else, who am I to be hopeless? If God has not yet pronounced the final word, who am I to do so? We truly see so little of what the real story is in anyone's life, including our own. When we are tempted to speak evil against others or ourselves, we can hand those thoughts over to God, realizing that He alone knows "the whole truth" and can be confident that He will handle all things according to His good and gracious character. The first and last word is indeed the Word of God in Jesus Christ.

We are so tempted at times to think we are like God. Not only are we tempted to play judge in relationships with others, but we can be presumptuous when we consider the future of our lives as well. This is what James turns to now. "Come now, you who say 'Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and get gain'". How quick we are to make our plans! I guess it gives us a sense of having more control over our lives if we can declare what we are going to do next. Remember, James is writing to people who are experiencing a variety of trials in their lives, trials that tempt them to stop counting on God to be present, good, and active in their lives. So here he is warning against putting our trust in our future plans. Have you ever found yourself thinking, "When I get this job", or "make it to that weekend," or "get my children in/out of school..." then everything will be okay? It is very easy to begin to count on a future event to take care of the tensions of the present. I think this is because sometimes we want our trials to end more than we want to know the power and comfort of God's presence in the midst of our trials.

As with judging our neighbor, James reminds his readers of who they really are before God. First he brings up the obvious point that they do not know their own futures. We cannot see even one day ahead and so our confidence and trust in our own plans are rather foolish. Then James broadens out his argument, reminding his readers of what their lives look like in the vastness of time and eternity. "What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes." It is easy to take ourselves too seriously, isn't it? We are so tempted to believe that so much is riding on us and that our permanence here on this earth is crucial. James is helping his readers to turn their focus away from themselves and back on their heavenly Father, who alone can make them "perfect and complete, lacking in nothing."(1:4)

When we remember God, and live out of our trust in Him, we can release others from our judgments and condemnations. There is a great freedom we can know when we see ourselves and others through God's eyes. Thank goodness it is He who has the last word on me and others and not me! Because He is the one who "gives to all men generously and without reproaching."(1:5) Of course, as we grow in the security of knowing ourselves as His truly beloved children, the need to put others down to feel better diminishes.

When we remember and count on God to be our future, as well as our past and present, then we can make our plans, but not in any absolute sense. "Instead you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we shall live and we shall do this or that.'" We live in God's hands, in His great and wonderful grip. I do not have to look to my future to make my life "okay." God gives me His presence fully now and will always do so. It doesn't mean that I have to learn to put up with or enjoy the trials and not hope for a better day. Ultimately there is a time in our future when we will be "perfect and complete", able fully to live in and receive God's overflowing grace and love moment by moment. Our trials are opportunities to cling more closely to the God who is able and willing to make us more and more the joyous children He made us to be, and to look forward to that future in Him.

We can still, and should make plans for our lives here, but we know that we don't have to count on certain circumstances or opportunities to give us our lives and identities. God will not be thrawted in His great good purposes for us if our plans do not go the way we think they should. We can plan out of trust and look to Him to lead us to the next step.

When we plan without God we are arrogant. That is because we are refusing to acknowledge the truth that we are not God--we do not know everything and we are not in charge. We do not know all that's going on in others' lives, even in our own, and we cannot guarantee that we will even live another day. This is why "all such boasting is evil"--because it is not true. When we know what to do, to live out of trust in a good and loving heavenly Father, and fail to do this because we seek to find our security, purpose, identity, or life somewhere else, this is sin.

There is a wonderful freedom in the truth James is teaching his readers. We can lay down the burden of having to know everything, having to control everything and everyone. We don't have to have the final say nor fear others or that a particular circumstance will have the last word. God alone has the first and last word in all things. And the name of that Word is Jesus Christ.

James 4:1-10

"1 What causes wars, and what causes fightings among you? Is it not your passions that are at war in your members? 2 You desire and do not have; so you kill. And you covet and cannot obtain; so you fight and wage war. Your do not have, because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. 4 Unfaithful creatures! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5 Or do you suppose it is in vain that the scripture says, "He yearns jealously over the spirit which he has made to dwell in us"? 6 But he gives more grace; therefore it says, "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble." 7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you men of double mind. 9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to dejection. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you."

James continues his thoughts on the destructive results of our having "bitter jealousy and selfish ambition"(3:14) in our hearts that he started in the previous passage. The last passage ended with James' statement, "And the harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace."(3:18). Right relationship with God, living out of a confidence in His presence and work in your life, is a life marked by the peace of Christ. We are content, able to rest in Him in our present circumstances and this peace flows out to our actions and our relationships with others. God's peace is not merely the absence of conflict, but is a wholeness and health that is expressed by a sense of contentment that is not dependent of the situations we are currently facing.

James now turns his thoughts from living in this peace of Christ to the root of our conflicts with one another. "What causes wars, and what causes fightings among you?" he asks. James answers his question with a rhetorical question, "Is it not your passions that are at war in your members?" The wars or conflicts between us are due to our passions that are at conflict. James can be referring to have conflicting interests or concerns between us and others around us. The conflict between Israel and Palestine is due to a conflicting passion for the same land. But, I think he is also referring to the conflict within ourselves. We have warring passions within ourselves, don't we? The desire for security, well-being, wealth, possessions, good relationships, etc. can all battle within us for supremacy especially if the fear/anxiety factor is high. Our desire for both intimacy and independence from others can lead us to send mixed messages because we are mixed ourselves as to what exactly we want from this or that relationship. The internal conflict heightens our insecurity and so leads us to take more extreme measures in our relationships with others. We have conflict within ourselves and we collide with the passions of others when we interact.

Our passions or desires tempt us to believe we need to possess, obtain, or control in order to have peace. But these lead instead to destruction and discontent. "You desire and do not have; so you kill. And you covet and cannot obtain; so you fight and wage war." As we have noted before, James is writing to people who find themselves in a variety of trials due to being forced from their homelands because of persecution. Obviously, when we are in difficult circumstances, our desires for peace, well-being, good relationships, success, etc. are not being met by our immediate circumstances. We desire, covet, or envy and cannot have or obtain. So our solution is to kill, to destroy, or to fight others.

I think we can expand James' statement about killing beyond actually taking someone else's life. Our envy of others can lead us to kill our relationship with them, to gossip about them to others in an effort to "kill" their reputation, or simply to "kill" our feelings towards them because we are so unhappy that they have it better than we do. It is impossible to be peaceful and content when envy and jealousy are at work in us. We may try to tell ourselves that it is not fair the way our lives are now and we have a "right" to make getting what we want a priority. But this justification does not really improve our situation but makes it worse in deeper ways.

This next section is very interesting. James goes on to tell his readers, "You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions." The reason they do not have, James says, is not because they have failed in their efforts to obtain or possess things on their own, but because they either have not asked or have asked only to have their passions satisfied. This seems to mean then that first of all God intends for us to receive what we need by asking Him. He is our Father and the One from whom "every good endowment and every perfect gift" comes from (1:17). He can be thoroughly trusted to know what we need, even more than we know. He is "the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change." Does He see us in our struggles, does He care? Yes, James has already assured them that this God "brought us forth by the word of truth that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures."(1:18) The greater glory God has for us is that we receive from His hand His loving, transforming work in our lives. We cannot easily receive from God what He desires to give us when we are busy attempting to obtain or fulfill our own passions. How can we receive His peace, love, and even joy in the midst of our daily lives when we are focusing on pursuing getting from others what we are convinced we need to be secure or to escape our troubles?

Secondly, James is telling his readers that God is not to be viewed as merely a means to their own ends. God will not give to us when we are only going "to spend it on (our) passions." God's desires for us His children are so much richer, deeper, greater than what we have in mind in our more immediate concerns. He intends nothing less than we be "perfect and complete, lacking in nothing"(1:4) and to "receive the crown of live which God has promised to those who love him."(1:12) This reminds me of C. S. Lewis's comments:

"If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of rewards in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea... We are far too easily pleased."

Transposition and Other Addresses, ch. 2

James now sums up the point he has been making in the last three verses. "Unfaithful creatures! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God." James is not saying here that we should not care for others in the world or reach out to them, obviously. The friendship of the world that he speaks of here he has already defined as having passions and desires that you seek to obtain by manipulative and destructive means motivated out of envy and jealousy and distrust in God. The world is that realm where we live without confidence in a heavenly Father and so attempt to gain power, authority, success, or respect through our own ungoverned abilities used against or in competition with others. Such persons count only on themselves, believing it is up to them to get themselves ahead of others. This is why James calls his readers "unfaithful creatures." They are living as if they have been abandoned by their heavenly Father, as if He isn't there, isn't good and able to transform them and love them in the midst of their lives here. This warning is the same as Jesus' words about the impossibility of serving two masters.(Mt. 6) If we are counting on ourselves, then we cannot be counting on God and therefore are unable to receive what He is ready to give us. We misrepresent our generous heavenly Father to ourselves and others when we let our jealousy and greed get the better of us. We act as if He is not at all what He has revealed Himself to be.

James follows this with a rhetorical question. "Or do you suppose it is in vain that the scripture says, 'He yearns jealously over the spirit which he made to dwell in us'?" Do you think, he asks, that it is just idle talk when the Scripture says that God yearns jealously over us? In other words, God is not neutral about us and what we do. God created us, with our best in mind, and He is passionate about seeing that His good will is done. He hates our destructive tendencies because He loves us, wholly and completely. He hates to see the twisting and destruction of His good creation and one part or person turning against another. He will not stand idly by, content for us to do "whatever" with our lives when He knows that He has so much better in mind for us. He is for giving us life and will oppose our attempts to pursue what in the end only brings death to us and our relationships. God is jealous over us, ready to protect us and resist those forces that would come between us and Him.

But he gives more grace; therefore it says, "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.'" As John tells us in the first chapter of his gospel, "And from his fullness have we all received, grace upon grace." (Jn. 1:16) Here James tells us that God's response to our wandering back to the ways of the world is to give us more grace. His grace shows up in two ways. To the proud, God's grace is experienced as opposition, and to the humble, as more grace to receive from the hand of God. As I said in the last paragraph, God will oppose our efforts to live in any way that is not out of trust and confidence in Him. God will resist our resistance. He loves us too much not to.

Therefore, since God will push against us when we live out of distrust of Him, we are called to submit ourselves again to God. Gary likes to use the picture of sailing to talk about God's will. When are living in His peace, when we pursue living out of a counting on Him to be our heavenly Father, then this is like sailing with the wind. The wind may be blowing very hard but as we are going with it, we hardly feel it. When we resist His peace and presence, it is like sailing into the wind. Now the strong wind blows in our face and our progress is slow and laborious. Turn from your envy and jealousy and the "need" to have your own way and throw yourself again onto your heavenly Father, knowing that He cares for you--even more than you care for yourself!

Counting on God again involves turning aside from your sinful distrust and drawing close to God. James tells his readers to "resist the devil and he will flee from you." This is a wonderful statement. When we are struggling with anxiety, fear, or guilt about our lives we listen easily to the devil's voice about ourselves and our situations. But James is saying this is not a hopeless circumstance at all. If we resist the devil, he will flee. We do not need to listen to his accusations and lies endlessly. And, as we turn from the devil we can draw near to God. He is always ready to draw near to us and will not leave us alone. We can know His presence and His comfort. We can receive again His grace. We can count on Him to never be far away, but always at hand, ready to draw close to us when we turn to Him.

James continues to deal with submitting to God in the next few sentences. "Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you men of double mind. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to dejection." God wants to enable us to see the truth not only of Him and the wonderful life He offers us but also the truth of sin and its destructive, twisting consequences. Sin leads to nothing good. There is not another, equally good life out there for us to have apart from God. God is life, all life, good, abundant, full life. When we attempt to get our own way, there is always a destructive cost. We have hurt others and ourselves in our attempts to control and possess. Repentance is agreeing with God about the grievous nature of our sin and its consequences. We need to see the folly and impossibility of continuing to purposely live in two minds. We cannot receive from God when we are out to take care of ourselves on our own. We are very reluctant in general to consider the nastier motivations and actions in our lives. But James is encouraging his readers to do this very thing. Not in order to beat themselves up with it, but to gain a true perspective of the emptiness of a life without our Father in heaven. There is a good Godly grief that can lead us to thanksgiving and praise for what God is doing to make us His children who are complete and lack nothing in Him.

Instead of exalting ourselves, maneuvering and positioning ourselves to look better before others, James encourages us finally to humble ourselves before God. And the most amazing and awesome result will come of this--"and he will exalt you." God desires not to keep us from exaltation, but to be the one who exalts us! And isn't it more glorious, more wondrous to be exalted by God Himself than to have to spend my time and effort trying to exalt myself? or trying to somehow get others to do it to me? How much more secure, satisfying, peaceful, and life giving to receive from God all He desires to give us, ultimately to receive His very self, than to try and give myself out of my meager resources life and peace and security!

James 3:13-18

"13 Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good life let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. 14 But if you have bitter jealously and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. 15 This wisdom is not such as comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish. 16 For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. 17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, without uncertainty or insincerity. 18 And the harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace."

James has just been writing at length about how we use our tongues and the destruction that can occur when our own double-mindedness towards God and others is allowed expression through our words. James now turns to the deeper issue of wisdom. "Who is wise and understanding among you?" James asks. Wisdom is the knowledge we need to live in this life and to interact with our circumstances and with those around us. James compares the two basic sources for wisdom--from God or from the world around us.

All along James has been focusing on how to live as Christians in the midst of continuing, ever-present trials in a twisted and fallen world. The Christians he is writing to are struggling and their struggles have led them to be tempted to even question God's presence, care, and activity in their lives. How are they (and we) to handle the pressures of devastating health or financial problems, loneliness, manipulative relationships, or the daily frustrations that pile up and so easily lead their (our) gaze away from the presence of their (our) heavenly Father? To know how to cope is to be wise.

Of course, James is clear from the start that the only true wisdom he believes exists is wisdom from God, or "from above" as he puts it later in the passage. To the one who is wise and understanding, James says, "By his good life let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom." What is a good life? Is it one free of trial? No, it is a life that is lived out of the meekness of wisdom. So, first of all James is saying that wisdom is meek. What does he mean by this? Well, if we look back to the first chapter James encourages his readers that if they are ever lacking wisdom to ask God, "who gives to all men generously and without reproaching, and it will be given to him."(1:5) God is the true source of wisdom and is always willing to give it to us when we ask. In fact, the beginning of wisdom for James, is to be wise about the character of our good God and so to be willing to receive from Him.

This is why there is a meekness to wisdom. We are not wise on our own. We are God's children--dependent on our heavenly Father to give us life, love, peace, joy, and wisdom to live. We are to allow this generous, giving God to give to us. This is the wise thing to do--to recognize that we are children who receive our life from our Father. James touches on this point later in the first chapter when he encourages his readers to "put away all filthiness and rank growth of wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls."(1:21) Remember that passage? The word is already implanted in them, not by themselves but by God. But they need to receive the word, make room for it, live by the truth of its living presence. And they receive it with meekness. I think one way to talk about this is to say that we are to receive from God what we know we cannot give ourselves. We are trusting, not in ourselves, but in His good, generous, loving character. So the person who is wise is able to show his works in the meekness of wisdom. True wisdom is not just good advice, good ideas or ideals, or knowing which side of a debate is the right side. Wisdom is real when it is in motion. What are his works? Not even just acts of charity but, all of what goes into how he lives--how he deals with his family, friends, acquaintances and business associates, how he handles his finances and spends his time, how he approaches the ordinary tasks of the day. To live in the meekness of wisdom is to go about our lives in a light-handed, self-forgetful manner because we know that we are not receiving our life and our identity from the relationships and tasks at hand. We are receiving moment by moment our life from God. We do not look to those around us or to our present circumstances (be they currently good, okay, or horrible) to tell us who we really are, to give us a sense of worth, or our life and livelihood. To be wise is to see that our present circumstances do not and indeed cannot tell the story of our real worth or limit our real ability to receive full life from God even now. Paul gets at this very point when he says, "For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, now depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."(Ro.8:38-39)

This is so radical and not at all easy in this world. Everything is always so uneven, isn't it? It is always so tempting to notice all that is out of place in our lives and to feel therefore that we are not yet able to live in the fullness that we could be. And, it is so very difficult not to compare our lives with others and to use those comparisons either to puff ourselves up or tear ourselves down.

James now turns to these dangers: "But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth." When we are jealous or selfishly ambitious, we are not trusting in God's ability to give us life in the midst of our trials, and to lead us, through these very trials to become "perfect and complete, lacking in nothing."(1:4) Our jealousy and ambitious plans for ourselves do not reflect the real truth about who we are and where real life is to be found. As I read this I frankly was really struck by how much of my life is battling with these things. Every day, the temptation to be jealous of someone else comes up. We can be jealous of another's spouse, looks, children, financial situation, personality, happy childhood, good health, even their faith! And it is so easy to maneuver myself in ways to make me look good, wise, humble, attractive in others' eyes.

James is aware of this. He knows that his readers are constantly bombarded by the temptation to compare themselves and so be jealous and selfish. He knows that when we are struggling with trials, this temptation is increased. So the first thing he is saying to his readers here is if you have these feelings in your heart, "do not boast and be false to the truth." No wisdom, especially the wisdom of meekness, can come out of a jealous and ambitious heart. This will put a wedge between us and God and between us and others, especially those nearest and dearest to us. These motivations are grounds for the charge of foolishness not confidence, much less pride and boasting.

The second way James seeks to encourage his readers who are wrestling with these temptations of jealousy and selfishness is to state clearly where this kind of "wisdom" comes from and where it leads. "This wisdom is not such as comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish." The wisdom of the world which comes by way of comparison with others is really "anti-wisdom" as it leads to nothing but destruction and death. Yet, it is regarded as sophisticated, advanced, adult and so, well, worldly wise. James is clear, however, that there is nothing good that can come out of our trying to justify our jealousies. Sometimes we want to make exceptions for ourselves because of our difficult trials. "Yes," we may think to ourselves, "we know that God is the source of life, but my marriage, finances, state of affairs, etc. are so bad or unusual that I can't help but have envy and jealousy towards others right now." Or, we may want to acknowledge that while God is present in our life right now even as it is, He can't be fully my source of joy, peace, and life until I make my life change. But James wants to remind his readers that this kind of thinking, or "wisdom" is from the world. It is not coming from our "Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change."(1:17) James encourages his readers to turn away from all thinking that is hindering their receiving wisdom from their always good, loving heavenly Father.

"For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice." These are the fruits of worldly wisdom. And we have all seen and experienced the truth of this statement in our lives. There can be no good result when we are motivated to protect, advance, focus on ourselves at the expense of others. There is no security or peace in an environment where everyone is primarily concerned for their own interests. It is hard to find rest here! Being jealous of others, or selfishly ambitious is "a big deal" James says. Don't be fooled, but be wise. When we are preoccupied with these things we are, at that time, not enjoying, resting in, soaking in, our wonderful Father from whom "every good endowment and every perfect gift"(1:17) comes.

Now that James has exposed the true poison of worldly wisdom, he turns his readers attention again to the wisdom God gives. You notice he uses the same phrase "from above" here that he uses in the verse I partly just quoted: "...every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights..." This wisdom is part of the good and perfect gifts our Fathers wants to give us. There is a lot you can meditate on in this list. First, James says God's wisdom is pure. He actually comes back to this at the end of his list when he says, "without uncertainty or insincerity." God's wisdom is not double-minded. He gives us all one thing--Himself. As He enables us more and more to grow in wisdom, more and more we are filled with His one real life. This perfection He is working out in us is a perfection where there is no longer any double-mindedness in us either--we are through and through pure--who we were created to be.

Wisdom from above is peaceable. When we know and live in the truth that we receive our lives and identities from God, then we have nothing to prove, or manipulate for here. We can be in His peace and so be peaceable. God's wisdom is gentle, not violent. God's wisdom is open to reason, not threatened. And, the wisdom from above is "full of mercy and good fruits." Wow, how delightful!

This wisdom is from God because this is God. James is describing the wisdom that God has first towards us! This is who He is: pure (not double-minded), peaceable (Christ is our peace), gentle ("Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls."Mt.11:28-29), open to reason ("Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord"Isa.1:18), and good fruits ("Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures."1:18--not to mention that He is the Creator, and all the good fruits of this world are His), without uncertainty and insincerity ("the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change"1:17). How wonderful God is! He is wise in all these ways towards us, and His implanted word in us, that we are to receive with meekness, is at work to share His very heart with us.

James ends this section with this thought, "And the harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace." With this, James is summing up his whole point. Envy and jealousy can never lead to righteousness, but only strife. True wisdom from God, given as the gift of God, bears fruit and that fruit is the harvest of righteousness which has as its roots peace with God and peace with others. Wisdom and peace always go together, for the wisdom of God always creates right relationship since God Himself is a triune communion of holy love. God shares with us Himself and His wisdom about right relationship which aims for reconciliation and restoration and so brings peace with God and with each other. No wonder Jesus said He offers us through Himself His own peace, a peace that the world cannot provide or accomplish.