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!