Make Christ your Greatest Desire! 

Tuesday March 29, 2022

Scripture James 1: ¹³ When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; ¹⁴ but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. ¹⁵ Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

Life Lesson: The fact that temptation often times originates in the human heart ought to be all the incentive any of us requires to guard both our heart and our mind through the study of, and faith in, the Word of God.

– It is clearly the intention of the enemy to incite the child of God to lay blame at the feet of God for his/her struggles with temptation.  In Genesis 3, Satan first accused the Lord of lying regarding the certainty of death for eating the forbidden fruit and then suggested to the innocent mind of Eve that God was withholding something good and fulfilling from her.  

– How many of us are led into temptation because we have somehow believed the accuser that firstly, God’s Word is untrustworthy and then that God is withholding something good and fulfilling from us by calling the thing we want, sin?  Look into it and you will see the natural progression that many wrestle with in this seduction into sin. 

– It is not God who is tempting us, it is our own natural inclination toward rebellion.  The fact that something exists that we desire but that we know we should not have and that to take it would be sin is not of the Lord’s making, it is our own.   You reason, “But God has put it right there and yet has told me, I cannot have it and therefore, it is God who is tempting me”.  This line of reasoning does not follow.  Have you heard it said, Eccl. 3:  ¹¹ He has made everything beautiful in its time”?   

– When we permit our own desire to overrule the law of the Spirit, Rom. 8:2 we turn away from faith and instead are led by the flesh.  Many today, thinking themselves as God fearers are in fact idolaters who show more reverence for the lust of the flesh than for their love of God.  Listen to what James tells us about temptation, “but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed.”  While we do everything we can to rationalize our desires, or to lay blame on anything and everything we can think of, yes even on God for our moral failures; the eternal truth of God’s word informs us in no uncertain terms that sin springs from our own natural sinful desires.  In fact, it is our own desires, not someone else’s, but our own desires that drag us away from the path of truth and righteousness.  James then uses language depictive of sexual intimacy to illustrate the seductive nature of our flirtation with sin.  Christian, when we who are the bride of Christ flirt with sinful desire, we are as the unfaithful spouse given over to adultery and that sinful union will procreate the bondage of sin and the bondage of sin will, apart from repentance, inevitably lead to death.   Remain faithful to the One who has saved you! Who has ransomed you! And who has given you a new name!  Silence sin at the door of desire by making your love for Christ your greatest desire!      

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True Wealth is Found in Christ! 

Monday March 28, 2022

Scripture James 1: ⁹ Believers in humble circumstances ought to take pride in their high position. ¹⁰ But the rich should take pride in their humiliation—since they will pass away like a wild flower. ¹¹ For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant; its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way, the rich will fade away even while they go about their business. ¹² Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.

Life Lesson: While so many strive intensely to elevate their personal status, the wisdom of God informs us that it is those who live in humble circumstances who are in the best place possible to receive from God while those who live in wealth and luxury are at great risk of impending judgment. 

– A passage like the one we are studying today might evoke a questioning response from many in the western church today due to our unbalanced and unbiblical view of health, wealth and prosperity being the hallmarks of God’s blessing.   

– What we tend to forget in our unbalanced view is the Suffering servant narrative: Isaiah 53:
² He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. ³ He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. ⁴ Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.” 

– Jesus Himself said of His personal status to those who said they wanted to follow Him, Luke 9:⁵⁸ Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”  We need to stop and think about the many men and women recorded in the scriptures whom God worked powerfully through, people like Joseph who was betrayed by his own brothers, sold into slavery, unjustly accused and imprisoned, yet whom God raised up to be second in command to Pharaoh.  Or like Moses whom the Lord called, not while he was prince in Egypt but after he had spent 40 years tending Jethro’s sheep in the Midian wilderness.  David, a lowly shepherd boy anointed to be king over Israel.  Peter, James and John all fishermen called into full-time ministry as Christ’s ambassadors.  And Mary of Magdalen out of whom was cast 7 evil spirits, yet Jesus chose her to be the first recorded person to witness the resurrected Christ!  No, not people of wealth or status but who were made rich through faith in God!

– Christian true wealth has nothing to do with our bank account, our house, not even our personal achievements!  It has everything to do with our relationship with Christ! Those in humble positions are made rich because of their faith in Christ!  The less we have in this world, the more we rely on Christ, the more we rely on Christ the more fulfilled we will be! 

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Ask God For Wisdom and Keep Focused on Christ! 

Friday March 25, 2022

Scripture James 1: ⁴ Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. ⁵ If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. ⁶ But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. ⁷ That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. ⁸ Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.

Life Lesson: When we ask God with doubts, questions and concerns overwhelming our hearts and minds we lose sight of the One we are seeking and instead we fix our gaze on the thing that is threatening to destroy us.

– Trials are to our faith as physical training is to our bodies, unfortunately unlike the benefits we understand to be consistent with physical training, our natural responses to trials is to do everything we can to avoid them.  Through the process of going through the unwanted trial we are developing the virtue of perseverance. Perseverance is necessary for building a strong character to carry on in the face opposition.  This is why James tells us that by persevering through trials we are becoming mature, complete and not lacking anything.  Metal that is forged in the fire and that keeps its composition through the blacksmiths mighty blows will prove capable of unbelievable strength compared to untested metal.

– This where the necessity of wisdom must be applied.  The natural man despises the trial, resists the process, and forfeits the benefits of the forging process. Because of our natural bent to resist trials, we must seek God for His wisdom.  Instead of praying for the removal of the trial, we ought to pray for the wisdom of God to allow His forging process to finish its work in us.  We must stop consistently trying to get out of the problem and instead humble ourselves under the mighty Hand of God and trust Him through the process.  This is the prayer for wisdom in this context.  No, not a, “get me out of this” prayer, but a, “I need your wisdom to persevere through this”, prayer.    

– James warns us against doubting when we pray in this context.  Why would we doubt?  We doubt because the gravity of the trial can be so discouraging, so overwhelming, that we lose faith in the love of God, we lose trust that God is with us, we lose hope that God could cause even this terrible trial to work together for our good, Rom. 8:28!  Yes we can allow our trials to cause us to question the Word of God.  Let me just say this about that, the Word of God is eternal and it will never fail!  Satan has always tried to incite the people of God to question the goodness of God, see Gen. 3: 1, 4.  But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved, Heb. 10:39!  James’ allusion to the tossing sea is a perfect illustration for us of Peter taking his focus off of Christ because of the wind and the waves and subsequently sinking.  Do not be tossed and blown by the raging of the sea!  If we are, it is only because we have taken our gaze off of the Author and perfector of our salvation and instead we have focused on the thing that threatens to destroy us! 

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Trials Are Essential to Our Growth! 

Thursday March 24, 2022

Scripture James 1: James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,

To the twelve tribes scattered among the nations:

Greetings.

Trials and Temptations

² Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, ³ because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.”

Life Lesson: Although scattered among the nations of the world, the people of God are unique, set apart and fully equipped to face every trial of any kind through our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

– Joseph M Scriven wrote, “Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere? We should never be discouraged. Take it to the Lord in prayer”.  Christian, although we might feel scattered and disconnected, we must always remember that we serve a risen Savior who hears us when we pray!

– James, the servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, half-brother to the Incarnate Lord, and late comer to salvation through faith, opens his letter with what might seem to be a paradoxical statement.  James writes that we should consider our various trials as pure joy! 

– For the vast majority of people, trials of many kinds are anything but joyful.  They afflict us, distract us, frustrate us, and monopolize our time and our energy and yet James exhorts us to have a hopeful attitude about our trials. 

– Jesus told His disciples, John 16: ³³ “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”  Just as resistance training is essential for muscle building, so too are trials essential to developing our faith! 

– James tells us the reason we should perceive our trials with a joyful spirit, “³ because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.” Trials are necessary for our growth!  Consider the spiritual giants illustrated in the Word of God and how they became so strong in the faith; people like Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Ruth, David, Esther, Peter, John, Paul and James!  These pillars of the faith only became pillars as they persevered through great trials and tribulations.  This is our heritage as sons and daughter of the Most High God!  Don’t give up, Look up and overcome!

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Warn the Wayward! 

Wednesday March 23, 2022

Scripture reference Ez. 3:¹⁶ At the end of seven days the word of the Lord came to me: ¹⁷ “Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the people of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me. ¹⁸ When I say to a wicked person, ‘You will surely die,’ and you do not warn them or speak out to dissuade them from their evil ways in order to save their life, that wicked person will die for their sin, and I will hold you accountable for their blood. ¹⁹ But if you do warn the wicked person and they do not turn from their wickedness or from their evil ways, they will die for their sin; but you will have saved yourself. ²⁰ “Again, when a righteous person turns from their righteousness and does evil, and I put a stumbling block before them, they will die. Since you did not warn them, they will die for their sin. The righteous things that person did will not be remembered, and I will hold you accountable for their blood. ²¹ But if you do warn the righteous person not to sin and they do not sin, they will surely live because they took warning, and you will have saved yourself.”

– We must strongly consider the onus the Lord places on the believer and follower of God to warn the wayward. I know that in our, “live and let live”, culture such a mandate seems entirely inappropriate, however when we consider what is at stake especially for the wayward, we might begin to understand and perhaps even agree with the mandate God sets out for His servant here.  I say that tongue in cheek because the truth is the truth whether we accept it or not. 

– We are to speak the Word of truth into the lives of everyone. That means our deeds must line up with the truth we profess to believe and our words must be flavored with the Word of God.  That also means there will be many who do not want to see it, and who really don’t want to hear it!  But does their objection to the truth mean that we who possess the truth can withhold that truth from them?  God says, “no”.  Here, as in other areas of the Bible we see God sending His servant to warn those who are going astray.  God cares about those who go astray; God pursues those who go astray, and He does so through His willing servants. God requires that those going astray hear the truth, and respond to the truth by repenting of their wicked ways.  

– Somehow in our modern age of anything goes, we have almost entirely lost sight of the importance of this truth.  Our warning to the wayward might just be the catalyst God uses to bring that wayward soul to his/her senses. This happens all the time in church services where the truth is preached and repentance is practiced.  Over my many years of ministry I have had the privilege of seeing individuals respond to the call to seek Christ at the altar and I have watched as such individuals have wrestled with the Lord in their seats but then stepped out with the strong hand of God upon them and kneel down at the altar to seek forgiveness and restoration.  What could be greater?!  Paul wrote in Gal. 6: Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted. ² Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”  This was written to the Church and is a message for the Church!  Consider how Paul warns anyone who is endeavoring to restore a wayward believer because of the inherent danger of also falling into sin!  Sin is insidious by nature and has a way of infecting not only the individual but of also spreading to those around that individual.  Those who make light of sin and repentance, especially regarding the life of the believer are already captive to it, 1 John 1: ⁸ If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”   

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Lies Tantalize! The Truth Convicts! 

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