Paul and James

I was on my way to work this morning and listening to Chuck Swindoll. He was doing a teaching on James. I don't know if I can get the right wording, but I will take what he was saying and put it into my own words.

He was saying how Paul's writes about salvation and walking our new lives with Christ. Then he was saying how James writes about our walk as Christians and how in one sense it sounds different, but when we look at it like this. Paul's writings are to see if there is a fire in the fire place, where James writes about if there is smoke coming out the chimney. Our Christian lives are not just about the fire, but the smoke too. How we need to have fruit and the evidence of our faith. We need to be careful that we are not just saying that there is a fire, but no one else can see that we have a fire in our fireplace, because there is no evidence of it, that isn't enough. We need to have evidence of our walk with Jesus Christ. So in other words, do people know you are a Christian or do they think you are just like the unsaved? What sets us apart from other people?

When we read James with that in mind, we can have a different attitude about what he has written. In James 1:2-4 "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. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." I think it is easy to think man another trial, ugh, I have to do this again, but can you see how changing our perspective from seeing the trial is not meant to destroy us, but to make us have more perseverance. God has a plan for every trail we face, He knew what it will do for our Christian walk and I believe that is why in 1 Thessalonians 5:18 it says "give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." God has a plan and when we start surrendering our will for what He wants, we stop fighting with Him and we start allowing Him to lead. James 1:12 says "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." 

Trials will come in our lives, not to break us, but to make us more like Christ. To teach us how to be patient, to love unconditionally, to walk as Jesus calls us to walk. When we stop wanting life to be about self and allow life to be about our walk with Jesus Christ, we will see smoke start to pour out of the chimney. Life is not about self, it is about our love of the Father. When our fire is not producing smoke, we are not living as Jesus has called us to walk. Our lives, our marriages, our talk should be that which displays our walk with Jesus Christ. Paul went blind, Jonah was swallowed by a whale, there are many illustrations of God driving force to get us to follow Him, but we must make a choice to do it, we must start making the climb, it just doesn't happen, it takes work. 

I will leave you with this verse to ponder James 2:14 "What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works?"