Why

My life is full of whys right now… everywhere I turn I see people asking why… everywhere I look I ask why… I look at my own life and think the same… why did my dad get cancer… why did my friend die… why did I pick that fight… why did I stop doing this or that… why am I trying to please everyone… why does my sister continue to seek help and stumble… why does my wife believe differently than me… why do I feel crushed sometimes…. why don’t I trust God more…the list of whys continues.

Why is this a very questioning day… 

James 5 – the Judge is standing at the door…

 

*This post is part of the Blogger Small Group reading the book of James. To read other participant posts, head over to Run’n Like a Vagabond. If you want to read my previous posts for the group, click here. 

Warning to Rich Oppressors

For me chapter 5 sums the book of James all up.  Throughout, I have thought that this book is all about our motives behind what we are doing in our daily life.  This chapter echoes that, and adds a twist… the Judge is standing at the door.    How difficult it is for “rich” people to submit to God.  We look at our spending, and think about how I did this, or what investment I made to get that… yet everything we have comes from God.  How we use it should glorify Him.  Verses 4-9 really speak to this for me.  James is basically saying… you can do this… just look at Acts 2 v. 44-47 – it talks about this very thing – this uncommon thing of the actual rich selling things to help the poor – it really can happen.  The poor guy on the street corner need us…

Patience in Suffering

V 7ish… With all that in mind, next is the treasure to come.  We need to be patient.  People who are short sighted will look at the farmer planting seeds and will think early on…what has he gotten today after putting in those seeds – nothing….he is working so hard and so long what has he gotten today – nothing yet…. But our focus needs to be on the future not today.  The ultimate outcome – the treasure if you will – is God.  We need to be patient with everything we do.  That God works on His own timetable – not ours. 

v. 11 – Job lived through a lot of hard times, suffering, yet God validated him in the end. Ultimately will need to get involved in the agenda that brings us closer to God – understanding that our agenda is not important, rather God’s agenda is.  If we put Him first, fantastic things are going to happen.

v. 12 – This brings my thoughts back to my earlier comments about being interested or committed.  If I am committed in my faith and love for God and say – yes – then nothing will stand in my way.  The same will go for no. 

The Prayer of Faith

v. 13 – interesting part for me.  First off I will say that we all need to pray.  We all need to pray for others.  We all need to pray in an unselfish way.  This makes me think through a question that was thrown at me not long ago about coming up with a one sentence prayer.  The thought being we all struggle sometimes coming up with the perfect prayer, with the perfect words, in the perfect order so that it “sounds” right to you and me.  Well, my one line prayer is “Help me, teach me, guide me.”

From there though, I have a question about this section… Is this physical sickness or is it our spiritual sickness.  If it was physical sickness – and God answered all of our unselfish prayers to heal someone, I guess that none of us would die… So I will take it from the stand point that the bible is talking about the spiritual sickness and I believe that is where this is going.  Jesus will ultimately heal us all – when He returns – in the interim we are all working on our spiritual sickness. 

v. 17Elijah, as I understand it, is one of the great heroes of faith?  Basically a righteous man can accomplish amazing things as long as we continue to bring everything to God.  Now this isn’t just the one and done approach.  It is the life long, asking for help, begging for help type of prayer… it is about laughing during good times with our God…we cannot just pray to pray, rather we should pray with a dependence.

Some final thoughts that came out of my men’s group this morning:

·        We have to allow the scripture to challenge us, every one of us.

·        We must come humbled and ready to learn – like a child.

·        Do I learn and appreciate lessons better by suffering though them or succeeding?

·        Who do we rely on?

·        We must be humble enough to reach out to friends/peers/everyone for encouragement and rebuke.

·        What rules our lives?

·        I’m blessed… am I missing something by not suffering?

In conclusion – For me the book of James has brought out that I really need to look at my motives more closely when I act, and I need to ask myself who I rely on….

Cool study, thanks for the ride.

 

An amazing song…

I have to stop and say that this is an amazing song.  It is one that needs to be sung.  It is one that needs to be included in our prayers.  I heard it on KLOVE yesterday.  While I know it has been out for a few months, the message is great.

God of this City came as a prophecy from a band called Bluetree (song recently by Christ Tomlin) when they were on a mission trip in Padi, Thailand.  From what I have read, Padi has over 30,000 prostitute over the age of 18.  This number doesn’t include men or children. 

While Bluetree was on this mission trip they were allowed to play in a Brothel and the only thing that the people who ran the brothel said was everyone who came with the band needed to buy a coke.  While they were playing there this song came forth and it was given to them by God. 

As best as I could, following are the lyrics:

 

You’re the God of this city
You’re the King of these people
You’re the Lord of this nation
You are

You’re the light in this darkness
You’re the hope to the hopeless
You’re the peace to the restless
You are

For there is no-one like our God
There is no-one like our God

Greater things have yet to come
Greater things are still to be done
In this city
Greater things have yet to come
And greater things have still to be done here

You’re the Lord of creation
The creator of all things
You’re the King above all kings

You’re the strength in the weakness
You’re the love to the broken
You’re the joy in the sadness

Greater things have yet to come
Greater things have still to be done
In this city

Where glory shines from hearts alive
With praise for You and
Love for you in this city

Greater things have yet to come
Greater things are still to be done
In this city
Greater things have yet to come
And greater things have still to be done here 

How God used me (take 2)

Last night was a rather humbling night.  Humbling in the context of God humbling. This is the second time in less than a year that I can point to that I was a piece of God’s plan that directly impacted someone else’s life.  Over the past year, God has put people in my life for a reason, He put in place the events that lead to me calling a friend (MM) about rejoining our Tuesday AM men’s group, to my study of the book of James, to me sharing my story about DEB and her life problems to my men’s group, to MM providing a possible answer to her problems through Focus, to me spending multiple hours talking to her about her life and where she is going, to us going to the Family and Friends night last night, to me “hearing” God tell me to crumple my raffle ticket for a free seminar, to the prayers I offered prior to the pulling of the last raffle ticket that it be DEB’s name pulled, to the prayers I offered saying if my name was pulled I will give it to her, to my name being pulled out of the box not once but twice (one raffle for free focus seminar and one raffle for 3 individual sessions), to me knowing that God had a hand in my name being pulled twice, to me knowing that God had this in mind from the start for me to let her know there are people in her life who love her, to the fact that I was meant to  give her the free seminar, to me knowing that I am meant to be there for her, to me knowing that I am meant to be a small rock in her life right now, to the “three warriors” I meet this morning who offered a prayer for her (and me) that touched my heart, to me walking away trying to wrap my head and fingers around this…and the list goes on from here.

This is reader’s digest, but pretty cool stuff.  Many will point to the above as just another series of life events.  I am past that now in my life. Things happen for a reason – God’s reason. 

In terms of last night, Focus seems right for DEB.  She is ready and is making the plans.  She knows that this will be rough on her, but she also knows this is something she should not walk away from. Baby steps to big steps.

Again, wow… My name drawn out of a box two out of four times. 

 

James 4

Tuesday small group blog regarding the book of james. Please join us if you are interested. Kyle’s web page is the page to start at.

James 4 (New International Version)

Submit Yourselves to God

James 4:1 – Are we fighting for selfish reason? Are we fighting for earthly reasons vs. heavenly reasons? I want what you want (earthly)…I want your car (earthly)… I want (earthly)…I want (earthly)…I want (earthly)…And what causes our fights and disagreements? Pride? Jealousy? Both? For me it is all of these. I struggle with pride from time to time. I think about what others have and I get jealous sometimes. Does this cause me to argue – sometimes. Is this a daily battle within me – yes.

James 4: 2-3 – Ask and ye shall receive…. Well maybe not if you don’t ask for the right reasons. If our only goal is purely selfish, then why would God answer those prayers? Please give me a perfect job – not going to happen. Please give me the perfect job so that I can carry out Your word. Stands a better chance.

I remember as a kid praying for so many things – most of them were truly coming from a child’s perspective – that selfish point of view all of us share as a child because we really didn’t know better. But to this day, I remember one prayer that I prayed that wasn’t selfish in any way – not sure why I am bringing this up right now and in this forum, but I prayed something similar to the following: “God please take all of the blessing I received today and give them to someone else who needs them more.” Going back to me being a kid, thinking selfishly, I must have had a happy childhood to give away my blessing. In any event, I hope that those prayers where answered.

James 4:4 – If money (or anything else for that matter) drives my motives in life, then I have placed an idol in my life. That idol then will cause me to be an enemy of God.

How many times have I said that life gets in the way with life. I tend to run from one thing to another and miss out on so many opportunities to thank God – or to place Him first in my life. Thinking through my day, I sleep as long as I can before getting up, I go to work, I go to lunch when there is time, I work some more, I come home, I eat dinner with my family, I (a) watch TV, (b) ride my bike, (c) take my daughters somewhere, (d) I surf the net, (e) I sit and relax, (f) I take care of the bills, (g) I visit with neighbors, or (h) I crash and burn, and then I go to bed and start it all over again the next day. That isn’t even addressing the weekends. Notice anything missing? I do. God. Sure, I pray all day long in my own way, I go to my Tuesday morning men’s group, I go to church most Sundays (except when life gets in the way…ughhh), I prepare for this blog study. I need to look at my life a little bit closer – am I choosing the world over God? It sure seems like it. Ugh #2…

James 4:5 – To be honest, I struggle with this verse a little bit. I usually use the NIV for my studies, but tried several others to get a different view of this particular verse (thank you biblegateway.com).

KJ version said “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”

Then the New International version says – “The spirit that God caused to live in us wants us to belong only to God. Don’t you think Scripture has a reason for saying that?”

The Contemporary English version, “God truly cares about the Spirit he has put in us”

New Life Version – “The Holy Spirit Whom God has given to live in us has a strong desire for us to be faithful to Him”?

New International Reader’s Version – “The spirit that God caused to live in us wants us to belong International Reader’s Versiononly to God.”

So, after reading each of these, I have to think that God wants us to follow the Holy Spirit that He put in us, and not to water that down and live it on our terms. He doesn’t want us to live a reader’s digest type of Christianity. He doesn’t want us to following Him only when it suits me. We aren’t to live with other things ruling our lives. He wants our time first and foremost – not secondary to everything else in our lives. It is kinda like what a friend said to me the other day, “Give me your checkbook and day planner and I will tell you what rules your life.” Okay, time for me to hide my day planner and checkbook – I have a long way to go.

James 4:6 – What more can be said…”God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” He wants us to be humble and not prideful. He wants us that way so that we appreciate Him, and we appreciate others. The more that we are humbled, the more I think that God pulls us closer. I don’t have to value myself against someone else. I don’t have to be proud of “my accomplishments.”

With that being said, I had a friend who passed away not long ago who I called “Quiet John.” John did so many things to glorify God in his daily life, yet he never called attention to himself. John was living a life that was humble – he set an example without calling attention to himself – he was living the life God wants us to. (PS: Good bye Quite John.)

James 4:7 – Put my faith in God in all that I do. If I do this, I won’t have to worry about the devil. The devil will know who controls my life – it is not me, it is not him, it is God. With this bold statement, comes the realization that I have work to do on this part also. How many times have I said that “I” accomplished this, and “I” am going to do this or that without thinking about God and His role in my life. Nice wake up call.

James 4:8 – The more I seek God, the more he shows himself to me. Plain and simple. I cannot tell you the number of times that He has done this in my life over the past year or so. I am more open in my faith, more willing to talk to others about who I am, etc. Each of the steps I have taken over the years has been a step toward purifying my heart. Do I have times when you could say that I have a “double-mind” – probably. I continue to struggle with jealousy and pride. I joke when I shouldn’t joke. Do I recognize it more now – yes. Do I still need work on it – YES!

James 4:9-10 – To me this two verses means to grieve, mourn and wail for those who are hurting. If they are hurting, then God is hurting. If I am sitting here, laughing and having a good time not thinking about anyone but myself, then I need to stop. I need to humble myself before God. Do I still need to laugh and smile – yes that is a strength that I bring to the church and to those around me. Do I need to use that strength in a way that glorifies God – yes. Have I been grieving, mourning and wailing – sometimes. Ugh #3…

James 4:11 – Ah… the tongue control battle again…. This is the 4×4 against my head statement. Can you hear me now? How about now? Verizon, 4×4, scripture….hmmm….

James 4:12 – Do not judge others – period. It is not my place. Not my role. We are here to help, to reach out, to listen and offering a loving hand. We are here to show our heavenly wisdom not our earthly wisdom that was discussed in Chapter 3.

Boasting About Tomorrow

James 4:13-15 – Okay struggle time again. This makes me think about my life. As we grow up there are so many plans that we have in life. As a baby we think about getting that cookie. As we grow older we plan on going to our first dance with the girl of our dreams. Older still – we plan on meeting the perfect match and getting married. Older still – we plan on having children, or the perfect vacation, or the perfect job, or going on the perfect mission trip. Older still – we plan on retirement, we set money aside, we plan on our kids growing up to be a little bit better than us, we plan on going places and doing things – someday.

We plan. Period. Or should I say, I plan. Time is precious though. Taking this from a different perspective – don’t procrastinate. Life is short and we do not know when it will end. I have seen to many friends pass away from cancer or heard about loved ones dieing in car accidents. Some of them knew not to procrastinate – they lived life. Others planned for the future – someday I will do that – someday I will help – tomorrow I will bring a dollar for the guy on the street corner – tomorrow I will ….

Don’t delay – today may be it. (I hope that doesn’t sound to doom and gloom…)

James 4:16 – With all that said, I never really thought about planning as boasting. Planning and boasting are one in the same? Wow… more deep thoughts I am sure are to come…this is hard for someone who likes to plan…

James 4:17 - Recurring theme for me in my past post – help someone period. No exceptions. No excuses. Be committed not interested. Committed means nothing will get in your way. Interested means that anything will get in your way.

I think that it all really comes down to motivation behind your actions, and the Book of James has been such a wonderful eye opener for me. I am glad that Kyle started this blog study.

His ability stuns me

    As you probably know, I love good stories.  Ones that are real make them stick with me even more.  With that in mind, this story is one that I came across and felt was worth sharing. My comments stem from a post left by a guest blogger on pinkhairedgirl webpage.  For me the entire story doesn’t matter as much as the middle section and the conclusion (although the whole story is important) .  Basically I love the part about being God’s favorite.

The part that struck me the most was when the guest blogger wrote, “His ability to go above and beyond our comprehension stuns me…”  This sentence makes me think of conversations I have had about God and where I am in my faith… where family and friends are in their journey… and for me it all comes down to this… My logical mind just cannot always comprehend what He is doing or why, and that is when my heart must take a step forward and say it will take it from there… my heart and my faith are working hand in hand…

Check it out.