Finding Direction

Have you ever needed a check up in your life and needed to retool some habits to get your life back on track? Sometimes we need gages that we can use check ourselves and answer if we are still on track in life or if we need to change some habits that bring about painful hangups and cause hurts in our lives. Over the next few weeks we will review some ways the scripture provides us with honest gages that we can use to answer the following question:

How am I doing Spiritually, Relationally and Emotionally with myself, God and my community.

There are some things that James the Brother of Jesus picked up in life and especially being Christ brother he could see the behind the scenes of the life of Christ.

Have you ever noticed that there are a large number of books and movies from friends & family members of famous people.

Can you name one?

Here are a short list I googled online:

“Through the storm” Lynne Spears” Mother of Britney Spears

“Finding Freedom” Harry and Meghan

“Melania and Me” (The Rise and Fall of my friendship with the first lady.) Stephanie Wolkoff

“Mommie Dearest” Christina Crowford

“Elvis and Me” Priscilla Presley

What do tell all books often have in common?

If you said “Dish the Dirt” on a celebrity you’d be right.

Often it’s a family member or trusted friend who could make the money and thats why they often do it. Some will take the high moral ground and say,

“The people should know!” Like they are going to make the world a better place for dishing the garbage. You ever notice that when they do that they never do it for free? haha! Truthfully …

Here we have the sibling of Jesus and instead of writing a tell, slanderous book,

James writes about the principals that Christ lived by to make following Christ a doable way of life and provides those gages that helps the believer check themselves at anytime. The “How To Do It Truthfully” of spiritual growth.

It is what is often seen as a wisdom writing in the new testament but either way it’s a tool that teaches us that Jesus’ brother had no axe to grind and saw these teachings lived out by his older brother.

James will be called “James the Just” by his contemporaries like Josephesus after James was killed as a martyr.

James could have started this letter off as “James the brother of Christ” and that would have been fine but instead

He Chose to start it off as “James, a Slave of God and the Lord Jesus.”

This is very intentional. James is one of those personalities that is about order and process, having grown up with Christ, James knew how Christ referred to God as His father and Himself as Himself.

James is writing to the young church that is already facing struggle from the outside and inside the church. James knew what had happened to his brother and knew that no one was above struggle.

Think about that for a second, James saw what Happened to Jesus and he knew if it could happen to Jesus, none of us was going to get a life without trouble. It wasn’t an issue of if trouble was going to come to the believer but it was about being ready and acknowledging that believer needed to be prepared for the trouble.

That the believer needed to accept the struggle as divine before they treated the struggle as a curse.

From the early days of the church a believers perspective mattered.

Faith saw the struggle as an opportunity to be faithful not as a chance to complain.

James understood that when faith is tested its a chance to grow.

It’s up to the believer to decide in their heart that God isn’t punishing them but instead God is growing them. Does the little plant resent being repotted? No, because,

One, it’s a plant. 2, also because if its not repotted it will not grow even a little before dying.

To grow fully a believer will be repotted a few times and life will appear to be getting thrown into disarray but that disarray will be for the good of the believer.

This is a truth, God doesn’t tempt but God does challenge you to grow. I love that God never tries to trip you up but will let you stumble forward into personal growth.

That growth will always prepare and protect you in your life from a greater distraction that would come even if you weren’t following Christ.

Now there is a difference between following Christ in faith and following the church out of habit.

You will reach times when you need to ask God for wisdom and the good news that God gives wisdom freely to anyone who ask in faith, but make sure you are really wanting wisdom from God and not trying to double dip spiritually.

God doesn’t share His wisdom with people who play games. If you are really just asking out of obligation but not out of faith, then you won’t be making choices from faith you will be using your own thoughts and won’t benefit from the wisdom of God and His above and beyond blessings.

You see one of the mistakes in people’s relationships is that one person often takes the other for granted and misses out on the benefit that their other could provided from their side of the relationship. Why? Because they don’t really have faith in that person or the relationship so they just give lip service to the fidelity of the relationship but secretly take pride in the fact that they are doing it on their own and their other is just a prop in their lives.

When this happens and their other realizes it the relationship suffers until the full value of the both are valued and treated correctly.

Just as the other won’t accept being minimized by their other, God won’t either.

If your loyalty is divided your end result is that you are not investing in the relationship in faith. Your other and God won’t put up with it and when you fail, it will be because of your selfishness and split loyalty not because of your other or God.

It amazes me how many people know this intellectually but still doesn’t practice this in their daily life.

God wants to help you reach beyond the limitations of yourself but won’t force you to trust in Him.

When you decide to trust Him, He will be able to give you true wisdom and love that is missing in your life or somewhere in your heart.

This is usually true for very successful people who mistake their outward success as equal to inward success. You can be the smartest person you know and out pace your peers in every area. However, if you make the mistake of thinking that what you do to succeed for a career will also work in dealing with your inner self and spiritual relationship with God you are will fail every time. Why?

Because as we saw with the life of Christ, that thing that made Him stop and take notice of people, as He was preaching, was their faith.

They had an element of trust and vulnerability that manifested itself into faith. God Honors true faith in the relationship dynamic with Him.

Doesn’t mean we get everything we want when we ask for it but God always listens. He will also notice when it is a bunch of junk.

You can say God I want wisdom but if you only want it on your terms, you really don’t want God’s wisdom, you want to be able to say you asked for it so you can vainly say you asked for it and act as if your wisdom is His. Inside you know its not.

I call this the weasel factor. So if what you do works out the way you want it to, you’ll take credit, if it doesn’t you can blame God and complain “God failed me.”

God didn’t fail you, you failed yourself by not stoping and seeing what God thinks.

I know this isn’t popular to say these days but the truth is

In a world of instagram and tic tock theology and Meme based Religion people have to start from the basics.

Without Faith in Christ there is no salvation.

Without Faith in God in our salvation, there is no growth. There is only self reliance. Self Centeredness. Now I come from a background where I had to be self reliant for most everything. I can tell you while I was good at working I wasn’t good at relationships.

I was relived when I learned that God would help me and then He grew me to help others. I had to have faith in His wisdom and admit I had only my wisdom and it wasn’t enough.

When we ask God for wisdom we must admit His wisdom is superior to our own. BTW It is. He will speak to us and when He does, we must act on His wisdom by merging it into our lives.

By Doing so we learn that He is with us when we over come. By Doing so He adds another tool in the tool set in our ability to over come adversity.

Simply put then: His ways become our ways.

One of the things God loves to do is to equip us to deal with the adversity that is always going to come. BTW the struggle isn’t a sin.

Our Response to it determines if we sin or if we overcome.

God loves to give us perfect gifts but we have to have the heart to receive them.

Again that requires faith and trust in God.

If God provides for us and we use His provision for our own selfishness, then we have corrupted the outcome not God. We are the one who have created or worsened our circumstance. Not God.

So How do we get better?

Learn the habit that we are to be quick to Listen,

James 1:19 NLT

Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry.

Quick to listen is about making sure you are hearing. Too many people only listen to respond so they can win a discussion or debate.

When we listen to learn we grow, even if we are right or are wrong. We are changed by the action of intentionally listening to grow, not being worried or insecure about being right or winning.

This is perhaps one of the most important things that a Believer in Christ can learn. Listen to Learn.

Hey this is good for people in general to learn.

Take the approach that “I don’t care about beating you up verbally but I want to understand you from your side of things.”

It’s also helpful to say, “God I am listening to learn from you God.”

God doesn’t need our attention but when we are quick to listen to Him, we are the ones that grow.

Remember that part that every perfect gift come from God?

James 1:17 NLT

Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow.

Our interaction with God is the seed of our growth. Even through our struggles and our success.

This is that part of the chapter that we realize that there is filth in our hearts or our lives that we are to treat as filthy rags.

The terminology used in the greek here indicates that the rags are not redeemable. Just washing them won’t work.

Have you ever picked up a rag that had mold and mildew so bad that you just threw it away because just picking it up you saw that it was not on the surface but deep in the rag in such a way that it was ruined for good?

We all come to God when we say yes to Christ with some rags we are not sure we can let go of. Hang ups that hurt and habits that scar but we don’t know if we can let them Go or if God really loves us more than the filth in our hearts that have corrupted you your entire life.

There are somethings God leaves up to us to decide when it’s time to let them Go.

So when James is telling us to

James 1:21 NLT

So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the word God has planted in your hearts, for it has the power to save your souls.

He adds that God has planted His word in your heart that has the power to save your soul.

The Seed is The LOGOS of God’s Son. That power also gives your the ability to get rid of the filth in your heart and life and replace it with doing the will God.

That doesn’t make you better than other people but it does make you better than your past.

Every Believer learns that they are never better than others, We all learn because we are not better we needed Christ all along.

Can’t just hear it , We must do it.

Sometimes people come to me for advice and after a while it becomes evident that they never wanted my advice they only wanted my attention or they were flattering me to get something they wanted from me.

People who take me serious practice the advice they asked for.

When it comes to God: People who Don’t practice what God has taught them are only fooling themselves.

This is true if you are rich or poor. James has a way of showing us to be grateful in our poverty because we have fewer things that tempt us to ignore God.

If you are poor then you tend to depend on God to provide for the daily needs. The wealthy tend to not live that way and their wealth has a way occupying their time with frivolous confusions.

Their wealth invites more temptation from the world because the world tends to come at them harder than it does the poor. The truth is the poor aren’t as important to the world as the rich is from the world’s perspective. So the poor gets used one way and the rich get used another way.

That’s why regardless of social circumstance both should be treated the same.

God doesn’t make a difference between the two because they both suffer with circumstances that they need help to over come.

So what’s a person to do?

Stop assuming that those that are different from you are the bad guys.

Even in your confusion in life decide now to practice what James is teaching here. If you are rich resist the urge to judge the poor or to envy their freedom that you don’t possess.

If you are poor don’t be angry at the wealthy for being wealthy.

Instead practice the quick to listen and slow to anger.

Guard yourself from those who want you to be angry about everything. They are miserable and want you to join them.

Remove what is filth from your life. If you don’t know what is the filth in your life, ask God to help you identify it and then practice the wisdom God extends to you. You are responsible with what you do or don’t do with it once you ask and God shares it with you.

Still don’t know what to do,

Remember your face! That’s right, Choose to not forget what God has taught you.

Practice what God has taught you and you’ll began to see how God has already blessed you and when He blesses you.

Lastly, When all else fails and you feel like you’re not doing enough:

Visit & Care for the Orphans and widows in their struggle. Help them. Take the time to cut their grass, fix what’s broken in their lives. IF you can adopt an orphan.

Why would God tells us to do this?

If you look at the culture of the day when James was writing this you’ll see that widows who didn’t have someone taking care of them struggled.

The inheritance went from the husband to the eldest son. Not the wife. She was totally powerless. If the mother and father died the children were often turned out into the streets creating lawlessness and crime.

So what James is doing is starting a revolution in religious history, James is echoing Christ when Christ said, in

Matthew 19:14 NLT

But Jesus said, “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children.”

Jesus was pointing to the children, who were likely orphans and homeless, who were coming to Jesus trusting in the way only a child could trust.

Jesus taught that the kingdom of heaven belongs people who are like the homeless Orphans.

James is continuing that teaching to the church that, in effect, the true believer takes care of the most powerless in society. Widows and Orphans and refusing the let the world corrupt you. We are not to turn it into a for profit because we then reduce them to a product.

We are to“Visit” and “Care For” them also means slowing down, noticing them and treating them with the dignity that comes from Christ. They are not boxes we check off in a list but instead they are the mission of every believer to live their faith.

If you can adopt, then adopt. If you can visit, then visit. If you can bring them into your home and love them.

They are your responsibility. They are how we put our faith into practice.

They are not our props in a social movement but they are part of the same masterpiece God has made in humanity and it’s our calling to love them and include them.

It’s amazing that when we get busy doing this side of ministry we see our own struggles shrink in comparison and we see God at work because we have joined Him in the work.

God knows the number of hairs on our head and asked that we notice and care for those less powerful than we ourselves are.

Don’t spend your time worrying that you don’t have the power others do, use the power of your life to help those worse off than you.

This is how you began the process of overcoming your own hurting and and bad habits, you are creating and practicing better ones and You do so by intentionally and honestly seeking the wisdom of God and then do what His wisdom teaches you.