Day 5 James 1:5

Today’s verse James 1:5

The Message

If you don't know what you're doing, pray to the Father. He loves to help. You'll get his help, and won't be condescended to when you ask for it.

New American Standard

But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.

If any of you lacks wisdom. Well I feel like that’s me most of the time, so what this verse is telling me is if you feel that way ask God for the wisdom to make the right decision. I kind of categorize decisions into two camps. The first being those “mundane, everyday” decisions that sometimes are split second. Like swerving to the right to miss a car rather than swerving to the left. It seems like those are the instinctive ones. For those I just pray each morning and evening that God gives me that wisdom to make the right choices when I don’t have enough time to talk with Him. Then there are the other decisions where I do have enough time to talk with Him. Those can be biggies or small ones. On those I’ve used this prayer. If it’s not your will, close the door, and make it obvious to my pea brain and vice versa, it is your will then open the door and make it obvious.  That has served me pretty well over the years. Sometimes the answer doesn’t come in the time frame I think it should but there are other times when the answer is scary soon…and obvious.

Trials are intended to drive us in dependency on God to Him. To make us realize we have no human resources, we are left only with an invisible means of support. The true believer then in the test is going to know he needs wisdom and reach out to God for help.

If you lack wisdom, you're commanded to ask God who gives to all men freely and liberally, holds back nothing and when you ask...at the end of verse 5...it will be given him. Pretty plain and simple isn’t it.

Next trial try it.

My prayer concern today is for my children and grandchildren. The Lord knows what their needs are.

Day 4 - James 1:4

Today's verse James 1:4 
The Message

So don't try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.


New American Standard
And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.


I like the The Message's version of today's verse.  Don't try to get out of anything prematurely.  Our first inclination when trials hit is to want to get it over with as soon as possible. Normal human reaction. But now that we know that it's God's way of "pruning" us, perfecting us, why would we want to short-change that process.  Because it hurts, that's why. Nobody likes pain...except maybe some deranged masochist type of person. So resist that first urge to remove the pain as quickly as possible and instead pray that God shows you why he has you going through the pain in the first place and be hopeful about what he's trying to show you. When going through a trial there's only one way out of it and that's through it. There are no side exits. You have to endure it. Remember though from yesterday God won't allow you to have more than you can endure. There is an end, it may take a little longer than you would like. Trying to think of a practical example...maybe it's a lot like working out. When you first start exercising, say walking, you don't go very fast or very far but at least you're going. As you do it more and more you can walk farther and faster. You're body builds up endurance. That's what God is doing with trials. He's building up endurance which in the spiritual sense is making us mature as a Christian. I remember my wife's grandmother who was 90 or so when she went to be with the Lord. Godly woman. Volunteered at the hospital almost till the day she died. Never said a bad thing about anyone. You know the type. So do you think she became that way overnight, or was born that way? I'm sure personality types enter into how we react to trials but I say no, she went through many trials in her life that matured her as a Christian so that by the time she died there weren't many trials that life could throw at her that she wouldn't "count all joy" that she was going through them. 


I was reading something earlier that Warren Wiersbe wrote,  He said, "Our values determine our evaluations.  If we value comfort more than character, then trials will upset us.  If we value the material and physical more than the spiritual, we will not be able to count it all joy.  If we live only for the present and forget the future, then trials will make us bitter, not better." He's right. Your values determine your evaluation of that trial you're going through. If we can't rejoice in our trials, then maybe our values are wrong. 
Of course while I'm writing this, I'm thinking in the back of my mind, the Lord is probably going to make you live this soon. Well I just pray that I have the strength to do what I've written and I pray that you do too. 

I want to start something new today also. Prayer concerns. I don't know how many people are reading my rambling but even if it's one, I'd ask you to pray for my concerns and if you post yours I promise I will pray for them also. I think in an earlier post I said that prayer can be a whole topic of it's own. I just know that prayer works. Maybe after James we'll tackle prayer. 

So I'm not going to go through my whole prayer list but maybe just one a day. Today, pray for my brother-in-law Dick ( I actually have two brother-in-laws named Dick, but the Lord knows which one I'm talking about) that the medicine he's taking will work so he won't have to have surgery.

See you tomorrow.

Day 3 - James 1:3

Today we look at James 1:3. Here's the text from both translations.

The Message

You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors.

New American Standard

knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. 

I said in a previous post that the book of James is all about the testing of your faith. Faith according to Hebrews 11:1 is defined like this - "Now faith is confidence in what we hope for, and assurance about what we do not see". 

Think about that for a minute.  So to love an unseen God and have confidence that what we're reading in the Bible is true, is faith.  So James wants to see  whether you really love God and have "faith" with a series of tests. There is the test of blame in temptation, which we'll look at later on in chapter 1.

And then there's the test of how we respond to the Word. 

Then there's the test of an impartial love to others, the test of righteous works, the test of the tongue, the test of humble wisdom, the test of worldly indulgence, the test of dependence, the test of patience, the test of truthfulness and finally the test of prayerfulness. Now all of those are tests which a person who truly loves God will pass.

But the beginning test, and what we're looking at in these verses, is the test of endurance through trials. It reveals whether love is really a strong bond, whether it is genuine faith. True faith sustained by true love perseveres in this test.  What happens when a trial comes into your life? How do you respond? If you bail in the middle of the trial and sort of curse God or walk away from God or deny God or ignore God, then that is probably showing your faith may be a bit lacking, don't you think?

Hopefully if you've given your life to Christ, I mean really given it up, then see what happens the next time a trial comes into your life.  Our human reaction will take over first, at least it does for me, then hopefully your faith will kick in and take over and you'll know that God is doing that pruning we talked about previously. So here's the tough part, it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when trials will hit. What will your attitude be? What James is saying in these verses is your attitude is to be an attitude of joy because you anticipate what perfecting work the Lord will do through that trial. You learn then to cultivate that right attitude. 

Much easier said than done when you're in the midst of the storm. Let me go to one other verse for today that will give you some comfort- 1 Corinthians 10:13 - No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and  God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.
If you're a new Christian and new in the faith as we've described, God is not going to give you more than you can handle. As you mature in the Christian faith he knows you can handle more and more. Remember the vine. If the first year you plant a grape vine you trim it all the way back down to the root, chances are the next year you're only going to have a plant that maybe grows back to what it was before you pruned it. But if you only prune a small amount from the branches that are showing, those branches will probably double in size the next year.  See the parallel? God will only prune enough to make us stronger in Him and our faith.

Day 1 - James1:1

Thanks for taking this journey with me. Hopefully this will be an interactive discussion where together we learn what God has in store for us. Part of the problem with New Year's resolutions is that by the time the 15th rolls around we've usually forgotten about them. Hopefully that won't happen this time. If you've come here from some other way than through the Facebook link I hope that you will be sure to friend me there. Bill Brown in Dublin, Ohio.

So together we're going to study the book of James. It's one of the shorter books in the Bible at only 108 verses. So that's 108 verses in 100 days of study. But the reason I really like it is because it's chock full of wisdom in how to live the Christian life every day. By the time we get to the end I believe God will show us exactly what He wants us to understand and we will be closer to Him as a result.

So, let's get started.

First a little history of the book of James. It's one of the 27 books of the New Testament. The New Testament being that which was written after Jesus Christ came into the world. Technically it's a letter that was written by James to the 12 tribes. There were 4 James' mentioned in the New Testament but most think the author of this letter was Jesus' half brother who was the leader of the Jerusalem church. It is thought to have been written between 45-50 AD. Along the way, I'll use some other resources to bring the person of James alive. We'll get to know the man a little better.  Since the people reading this for the most part are not that familiar with the different translations of the Bible, I'm going to use one that is written in everyday English called The Message and a more traditional New American Standard (NAS).

The Message

James 1:1 - I, James, am a slave of God and the Master Jesus, writing to the twelve tribes scattered to Kingdom Come: Hello!

NAS

James 1:1 - I, James, a bond-servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes who are dispersed abroad: Greetings.

So that seems pretty straight forward doesn't it. He's opening up the letter like you normally would when you're greeting someone. Except look at that "a bond-servent of God". What does it mean to be a bond servent? The Message in this case describes it a bit better as being a slave of God and the Master Jesus.

I want you to think what that means. Are you ready to give it all up and be a slave? James did. He saw his half brother perform miracles, raise people from the dead, feed 5000 with practically no food, and most important of all was a witness when He came back from the dead and appeared many times to his disciples as well as other people. So would you sell everything and become a slave for someone like that?

Better think hard about your answer because you might have to come to terms with that sooner rather than later.

So who were the 12 tribes he was addressing? They're the Jewish Christians who are scattered throughout the world. Hmm, no internet, no blogs, no Facebook. Talk about faith. We probably won't know until we get to Heaven how many of the early Jewish Christians actually read this letter but we do know that it was included in the writings of the first New Testament and has been read by way more than those Jewish Christians. Just as you're doing now.

I would encourage you to go ahead and read the whole book of James. If you don't have a bible there's a lot of them on the internet for free. Here's the one I use most. http://www.biblegateway.com

Comment, go ahead and get the discussion going.

See you tomorrow.