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?"

The Devil and his Lies

I was thinking about the devil today and really was thinking about how blind we are to his affect on us, because we think that it is normal or that we think that it is just the way of life. God has warned us about the devil, in 1 Peter 5:8 “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” The devil is out here looking for ways to destroy us, do you know he does not want us to proclaim the name of Jesus Christ; the devil does not want marriages to work, families to stay together. God has been clear about how things should be, but when we go against what the Bible says, we are going against what God has said, what He has instructed us to.

We need to stand tall and it says in James 4:7 “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” There is a process, it isn’t just resist the devil, first we must submit to God. Yes, we must surrender, because if it is about our will, it is not about what God wants. So first it must be Lord I surrender, I submit to you and the resist the devil, say devil you have no place in my life, in my home in my marriage. My home is God’s, my marriage is God’s and most importantly my will is God’s, it is not yours to mess with. In doing so, you are saying God Your will be done, it is no longer about myself, it is about You God.

See when we make life about ourselves, we are not surrendering to God. We are not doing it God’s way, we are doing it our own way. It has to be about God, not about self. That must be the hardest thing to understand. God is greater than our problems, do you know that God wants us to follow His teaching; He wants us to follow Him, not ourselves. We have direct instructions to follow, are we doing it or are we following are own selves?

The devil is very active and the more we draw into Christ the more the devil will try to destroy us, I am sorry to tell you this, because the devil does not want us to be close to God, because the closer we are to God, the closer we are to understanding the ways of the devil. If you research how the Bible talks about the devil, you will see that he is sly, he is cunning and very smart, we think that the devil is dumb and that we can trick him, but the truth of the matter is the devil is always looking for ways to rob, steal and destroy. John 10:10 "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full."

Don’t forget that Jesus has already won the battle, but we must submit, turn from the wicked ways and surrender ourselves to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, resist the devil and he will flee. I believe that people get confused, they think that since Jesus Christ defeated the devil that we do not have to deal with him, but that is the farthest thing from the truth, he wants to do anything it will take to take us away from Jesus Christ, so look at your life, who are you focusing on? What are you focusing on? Is there something you do that takes you away from a personal relationship with Jesus Christ? Because know what the devil will use anything to destroy your relationship with our Father, if you are not focusing on God and keeping Him in the center of your life, of your marriage, of your relationships, what is causing you not to?

God calls us to complete surrender, isn’t it time to do that? There is no time like the present to say "Lord I am not following You like You have called me to, that is a sin, I have placed others things first and I confess my sins to You, I want You to be first and not my things, because I want You to rule my life and not my wants, because I want what You want. Lord forgive me."

He will forgive you, but you also must turn from the sin, that is true repentance. Jesus has promised to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, but we first must confess our sins to Him 1 John 1:9 "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.". We must do what it takes, it just doesn’t happen. We as Christians still sin, when we asked Jesus to forgive us of our past, it didn't mean that we are free to do whatever now because we are saved, it means that we must live a life that represents Christ. Are we representing Christ by doing the very things that He has instructed us not to do?