Care Full

James 5:1 Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you! 2 Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. 3 Your gold and silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have heaped up treasure in the last days. 4 Indeed the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. 5 You have lived on the earth in pleasure and luxury; you have fattened your hearts as in a day of slaughter. 6 You have condemned, you have murdered the just; he does not resist you. 7 Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, waiting patiently for it until it receives the early and latter rain. 8 You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. 9 Do not grumble against one another, brethren, lest you be condemned. Behold, the Judge is standing at the door! 10 My brethren, take the prophets, who spoke in the name of the Lord, as an example of suffering and patience. 11 Indeed we count them blessed who endure. You have heard of the perseverance of Job and seen the end intended by the Lord--that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful. 12 But above all, my brethren, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath. But let your "Yes," be "Yes," and your "No," "No," lest you fall into judgment. 13 Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing psalms. 14 Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 16 Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. 17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. 18 And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit. 19 Brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back, 20 let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.

What you care about and who you care for is the essence of life. Life is not just being alive – animated and breathing – it is the opportunity to be life to those around you. In this arena we find our purpose, and our reason for being alive in the first place.

If our purpose is focused on the material, we will have missed life entirely. James is very clear on this subject - as was his half-brother Jesus. Every material thing you see will not last. It is foolish, selfish, hard-hearted, and corrupting to act as if the material has any importance what so ever beyond what it may provide as a means of glorifying God.

My hands can be used to brutalize for my own purposes, or they can be used as agents of healing prayer on behalf of God. My hands can clutch what is “mine” or they can open to hand you “yours.” (Full of care for others.)

Jesus’ concern was to turn a sinner from the error of his ways, and the way He did this was to give His life away. He held back nothing. He nailed it.

-Pastor Bill

War Un-fare

James 4:1 Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? 2 You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. 4 Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, "The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously"? 6 But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: "God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble."

James continues to discuss matters of the heart, in a fashion which plops our heart out in front of us for self-examination.

“Why am I constantly in places of confrontation,” you may ask? Oh yeah, the reason is because of the selfish desire for pleasure that wars in your members. Can you argue with that? Wanna start something?

Fighting is something that comes very naturally to us. Defending our turf, and our way of life. This can be as significant as capitalism versus Nazi-ism, or as (seemingly) insignificant as which way the toilet paper spools off the roll. Are you over-the-top, or under the roll? (Sorry, didn’t mean to get you started…)

We have our way, and our way is better than their way. My way is better than your way. And my way can be better simply because it is familiar to me. I will fight to keep my way. Sometimes I will even say, “My way or the highway.”

How can human beings EVER get along? Takes a lot of policing, don’t it? And sometimes even policing doesn’t guarantee an end to the strife – because the police have their way, and…you know the rest…

Is the church the same as the rest? After all, the church is comprised of a bunch of rugged individualists - those strong enough to turn their backs on the world, and everything the world offers. (I know the world says we are mind-numbed robots who blindly think alike, but we know that’s not true, don’t we?) Won’t these rugged individualists really fight tooth and nail to maintain their Spiritual independence?

And here is where everything changes. Warfare is not to be against people, and even when it is – in the case of Biblically justifiable responsible warfare – the true enemy is not the guy in front of you. Warfare is Spiritual. And it starts with you. The war that rages in your members.

Whose side is God on? This is the question we often ask to attempt to justify our position. But a better question to ask is: Am I on God’s side?

-Pastor Bill

Whose Mouth is it Anyway?

James 3:1 My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment. 2 For we all stumble in many things. If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle the whole body. 3 Indeed, we put bits in horses' mouths that they may obey us, and we turn their whole body. 4 Look also at ships: although they are so large and are driven by fierce winds, they are turned by a very small rudder wherever the pilot desires. 5 Even so the tongue is a little member and boasts great things. See how great a forest a little fire kindles! 6 And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell. 7 For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and creature of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by mankind. 8 But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. 9 With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the similitude of God. 10 Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so. 11 Does a spring send forth fresh water and bitter from the same opening? 12 Can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Thus no spring yields both salt water and fresh. 13 Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom. 14 But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth.

I serve Creator God. I belong to Him, lock, stock, barrel, and…mouth?

Strange as it may seem, many of us would claim the prospect of wholly His, while at the same time regularly being mouthly His ain’t.

This is not unusual at all, and this is the reason James takes this up. James saw the same people praise His brother Jesus as He rode into Jerusalem and call for Barabbas when the choice between Jesus and Barabbas had to be made.

What is really being spoken of here is consistency, through and through. What the Bible calls integrity, or wholeness.

You have often heard it said you are really the person you are when no one else is watching. What is your character when no one sees?

Just as the ankle-bone is connected to the foot-bone, so the heart-bone is connected to the mouth-bone. This is why Jesus said it is out of the overflow of the heart that the mouth speaks. If you have an ungraceful mouth, it is because you have an ungraceful heart. I need to teach that to myself first, lest I be judged by my own mouth.

-Pastor Bill