Today Our Daily Bread James 1

James 1:1-27
Greetings from James
1This letter is from James, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is written to Jewish Christians scattered among the nations. F1 Greetings!
Faith and Endurance
2Dear brothers and sisters, F2 whenever trouble comes your way, let it be an opportunity for joy. 3For when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. 4So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be strong in character and ready for anything..
5If you need wisdom—if you want to know what God wants you to do—ask him, and he will gladly tell you. He will not resent your asking. 6But when you ask him, be sure that you really expect him to answer, for a doubtful mind is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. 7People like that should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. 8They can't make up their minds. They waver back and forth in everything they do.
9Christians who are F3 poor should be glad, for God has honored them. 10And those who are rich should be glad, for God has humbled them. They will fade away like a flower in the field. 11The hot sun rises and dries up the grass; the flower withers, and its beauty fades away. So also, wealthy people will fade away with all of their achievements.
12God blesses the people who patiently endure testing. Afterward they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him. 13And remember, no one who wants to do wrong should ever say, "God is tempting me." God is never tempted to do wrong, and he never tempts anyone else either. 14Temptation comes from the lure of our own evil desires. 15These evil desires lead to evil actions, and evil actions lead to death. 16So don't be misled, my dear brothers and sisters.
17Whatever is good and perfect comes to us from God above, who created all heaven's lights. F4 Unlike them, he never changes or casts shifting shadows. 18In his goodness he chose to make us his own children by giving us his true word. And we, out of all creation, became his choice possession.
Listening and Doing
19My dear brothers and sisters, be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. 20Your anger can never make things right in God's sight.
21So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the message God has planted in your hearts, for it is strong enough to save your souls.
22And remember, it is a message to obey, not just to listen to. If you don't obey, you are only fooling yourself. 23For if you just listen and don't obey, it is like looking at your face in a mirror but doing nothing to improve your appearance. 24You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. 25But if you keep looking steadily into God's perfect law—the law that sets you free—and if you do what it says and don't forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it.
26If you claim to be religious but don't control your tongue, you are just fooling yourself, and your religion is worthless. 27Pure and lasting religion in the sight of God our Father means that we must care for orphans and widows in their troubles, and refuse to let the world corrupt us.
FOOTNOTES:F1: Greek To the twelve tribes in the dispersion. F2: Greek brothers; also in 1:16, 19. F3: Greek The brother who is. F4: Greek from above, from the Father of lights.
~Lena’s Journalin’~What a new way of seeing things. I was thinking of how we look for job opportunities, money making schemes, opportunities to be with certain people, opportunities to sing or play music, etc,,,Here we see that trials/tests/hardships can also be opportunities to be aware of and look for praying that we will use them to exercise the faith we all say we have in Christ, to practice what we’ve learned in Bible Study times, and to apply the changes we say Christ has made in us! Remember Wisdom is knowledge in action, knowledge applied. So when a trial comes our way, an opportunity comes our way to act upon what we’ve heard in God’s word and to be who He is forming us to be, to apply knowledge. Then it goes further to say, Pray and ask God for help to apply what you’ve learned and been taught by book knowledge, now make it life application to me, OJT, On the Job Training! What are we training for when we read the word? Life, Love, Eternity. It’s like going to college and now getting out and interning till it is time to do the work of the career trained for, even after internship there is OJT. What are we to achieve in life? Materials?, Great income and social stature?, Relationships that make us look popular and tell others we are loved? We can surely have all of these and seek after them and pursue them wholeheartedly, but in their pursuit we may miss the point of why we are here. For when we die, we will know that not one of these pursuits placed us in the correct relationship with God to come and live with Him in His heavenly kingdom. If we did not live as a citizen of His heavenly kingdom while on earth, there is no passport in after we die. We must make our citizenship while here and show, with the proof of our lives that we live there while being "stationed" here. We will carry the rank and marks and will be recognized as such when we arrive at Heaven’s gates. One area that always comes up in thinking that God has tested someone is in the area of sickness, now remember God does test, but He does NOT test with evil, sickness is evil, and a direct result of such. It could be evil we participate in (such as in taking drugs, one could OD), or evil that is just trying to get into our lives and we’ve not come under the protection of obedience and perfected love, and so we are attacked by evil works, or it could be a curse upon us from past generations that needs to be severed, any way, sickness comes from evil and NOT God. Close the doors on anything that even resembles God’s enemy and blessings will start to flow. (works of flesh resemble God’s enemy, hatred, strife, anger, evil speech, lust, etc) God’s way is perfection and if you look up that word you’ll see "completion" and "wholeness", that means it is all sealed up, completely covered- the house is locked and only God and the family members who live inside have the keys, who else has the keys! Do we know or have they been given out to every neighbor, "friend", known and unknown? Jesus said he gave us the keys of the kingdom and whatever we bind on earth is bound and whatever we loose is loosed (Mt 18), Lock the doors, but only after kicking the intruders OUT! Here James gives the way to become more like Christ, ponder words, see if they will resemble Christ’s character well then decide first whether they should be spoken or not. The last verses say that if we do not do this and control our tongues what we think we serve (God), is not being served, in fact all we do for God is as nothing, because this is quite important in the realm of representing Him and His name on earth. We have to remember God’s words in order to do them. This begins with the sheer desire to want to study and know Him more. I see it as a responsibility as a messenger, which we all are. If I’m to portray or communicate the message I must know it. I home schooled our children and one day in one of our lessons there was a small article called, "The King’s Messenger". We read it and then did a lesson practicing how to do it. In short it said, long ago the only way messages were delivered was through the mouths of people. The king had an important message to send to another town or to an army or to another kingdom and he used a messenger to deliver the message. Some did not know to read or write and so they depended upon a living human being to deliver their message. This was a very important job and the messenger had to know the message exactly as it was presented to Him, He had to rehearse it and take it somewhere else, communicate it properly. I saw myself in this story as one who is commissioned by God with His message, and whether I share it with a friend or with a stranger or give it to a Bible Study Group or teach it to my children or my disciples, I’d better know the message accurately and be able to communicate it clearly. I believe it is my commission as a member of God’s "army". (Go into all of the world….) This newly understood assignment led me to pay much closer attention to preaching, it also caused me to mix it with tools I’d been encouraged to use such as note taking, etc. After many, many years of living out this conviction in practice, my memory of the word has improved immensely. I still take notes at meetings, and I make it a point to listen more intently, thinking, what IF God wants me to deliver THIS message to someone somewhere, or what IF I need the tools given in this message? What If? I’ve put myself in a place in my thinking to be available, if.