If anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. (Jam 1:23-24)

A big contribution The Letter of James makes to our faith, to a healthy understanding of the Christian life, and to the canon of Scripture, is how uncomfortable it makes us. Luther called it, "an epistle of straw." Many believers feel oddly about James, like it's either a regressive book too connected to Judaism, or it's somehow truer and more real with its "pull-no-punches" approach.

"The LORD sent from on high, he took me; he drew me out of many waters." (Psa 18:16)

[Pause from church ministries series. Reflecting on James's many commands...]

Our King who commands and our Shepherd who comforts are One!

One of my favorite things about God’s works is that God is never doing just one thing. His grace is full of wisdom. 

"What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you?" 
Wouldn't you love to know the answer to this? 

We live in an age where, if you didn’t do it alone, it doesn’t really count. But what the wise observe is that, if you don’t do it together, it doesn’t actually happen.

We want everything we do to be done with GRACE FIRST. We want our church to be a Chapel of Grace. A set-apart place, out and away from the burdens of the world, where “if anyone thirsts” they might come and find the grace of God in Jesus. (John 7:37)

For the first time in 350+ devotionals, I’m going to write a series.

First, this series will discuss our “ministry philosophy.” Which is fancy-talk for “the way we’re gonna try to do the things we do.” These are guiding principles, attitudes, and ways we can assess what we’re doing. Are we just co-opting worldly values and methods? Or are we being reshaped by the Spirit of our God?

What are the "works" that are the signs of living faith?

First, this is obedience to Jesus. 
This involves making disciples of Jesus, for Jesus: "Go...make disciples." (Mat 28:19-20) Yet within this command Jesus says, "teaching them to obey all I have commanded you." So obedience to the disciple-making command involves being alert to Jesus' teachings and commands.

A few weeks back we talked about James 2:1-13: social partiality and social mercy. About the social gravity that trials exert on us to seek "easy" connections. People who don't stress us out. We are partial to the people we think will make our lives easier.

Thank God that Jesus isn't like that. 

Here's one of the many beautiful developments in Scripture

1. God's Word runs the universe. From creation to the end, as 2 Samuel 22:31says, "The Word of the Lord proves True." God says it, and there is it! (Gen 1:3) God's Word runs everything; God's Word will be established. God's Word is always trustworthy.

Terrorists know that the best way to maximum damage is to weaponize good things. Put a bomb in a hospital. Send a mother and child into the market strapped with explosives. Poison the water supply. (Where did they come up with this idea? Something so repugnant and inhuman?)

How do you feel, as a Christian? In relation to God? Shame and guilt? Like a failure? Rightly accused for your sins and weakness? 

"Everyone did what was right in their own eyes." This is the lament of the book of Judges. The people did the things that they thought were right, for them.

What is the Word of the LORD for you today?

Here's an observation from 1-2 Samuel that can help answer this. The Word of the Lord in 1-2 Samuel included the Word of God's anointing--i.e. the statement of fact that Saul, and then David, was anointed by God. 

We conquer by holding the Word of Jesus' faithfulness and victory by His blood. We conquer by letting Jesus do the conquering. We just love it. That's how we conquer. We love the Gospel.

Now when Simon (the "magician") saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles' hands, he offered them money, saying, "Give me this power also, so that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit." 

This day the LORD will deliver you into my hand...that all this assembly may know that the LORD saves not with sword and spear. For the battle is the LORD's, and he will give you into our hand. (1Sam 17:46-47)

The early church father, Irenaeus, wrote the often-quoted phrase, "The glory of God is man fully alive." This smacks of pop-spirituality--best you, best life, right now. But there's truth in it.

"The single most characteristic thing about David is his relationship to God. ...The evidence for David's pervasive, saturated awareness of God is in his profusion of metaphor: rock, fortress, deliverer, refuge, shield, horn of salvation, stronghold, savior. David is immersed in God. Every visibility reveals an invisibility. David names God by metaphor."