Monday
James 1.5 “If any of you lacks wisdom he should ask God and it will be given to him, for God is a generous giver who neither grudges nor reproaches anyone.”
James is the one who says faith without works is dead. He is passionate about faith being practical, and his letter is full of ethical guidance. But James always connects ethics with theology. How we behave reflects what we believe about God. God is a generous giver – that means when we pray and ask for wisdom, God’s wise guidance is forthcoming. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom – to want to please God, to love God through our obedience to his call and command. That is wisdom, and as everything else in our lives as Christians, such wisdom is God’s gracious gift.
Tuesday
James 1.19 “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for human anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.”
This week we are exploring how James connects Christian practical living with what we believe about God. What a difference in our closest relationships, the way we are with colleagues at work, the quality of family life, how we get on with the neighbours and those we meet in supermarkets, church or wherever – what a difference – if we took James’ advice about listening, speaking and anger management! “The righteous life that God desires”, is a life that reflects God’s generosity, God’s slowness to anger and quick attentiveness. That too needs wisdom, and is the fruit of the Spirit.
Wednesday
James 1.27 “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”
Looking after those who are vulnerable is what makes our faith practices acceptable. Sure, prayer, worship, fellowship, witnessing all matter; but they cease to matter much if we don’t notice the folk who are struggling and put ourselves about and use our resources to ‘look after them’. The parable of the Good Samaritan is about looking after someone, being inconvenienced, refusing the get out clause that you can’t solve everyone’s problems. Being polluted by the world undoubtedly includes exactly that kind of self-justification for not being kind. The church is the Body of Christ, a community called to be an extension of God’s generous ‘looking after’.
Thursday
James 2.5 “Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith, and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him.”
If we live a relatively comfortable life, words like these can feel a bit uncomfortable! James is warning against complacency, when we are getting by fine without God, at least as far as daily bread and life’s necessities are concerned. In God’s economics those who have least trust most. James is insisting that material comfort is not a sign of God’s blessing; and being poor is not a sign of God withholding blessing. Before God we are all poor in spirit. Following Jesus is to acknowledge our poverty, and to trust not in what we have, but in the promise of inheriting the Kingdom of God.
Friday
James 3.9 “With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people, who have been made in God’s likeness. My brothers, this should not be!
You can’t praise God for being generous then curse those made in that God’s image! James has laser accuracy in pinpointing hypocrisy. Often enough it is our words, how we speak of people, that exposes what we think in our mind and feel in our heart. To love God is to love our neighbour. To pray to the generous, righteous God of grace obliges us to speak and think of others generously, justly and with grace. There can be no mismatch between how we speak to God, and how we speak about others!
Saturday
James 4.6-7 “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Submit yourselves then to God
Pride comes out in different ways. Arrogance. Superiority. Entitlement. Image. Status. None of that counts in the presence of God. None are entitled, superior or in any other way self-assured. Real confidence in God’s presence has its foundation not in who we are, but in who God is – gracious, righteous, generous and merciful. To kneel before God is to discover a grace in which we stand! James is steeped in the Wisdom of his Jewish heritage – “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”
Sunday
James 1.17 “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”
Perhaps the best ever comment on this verse is the hymn:
Great is thy faithfulness, O God, my Father;
There is no shadow of turning with thee.
Thou changest not, thy compassions, they fail not;
As thou hast been, thou forever wilt be.
Great is thy faithfulness,
Great is thy faithfulness,
Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed thy hand hast provided;
Great is thy faithfulness,
Lord unto me.
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