In the world small things can have great power. In the 3rd Chapter of James, he gives examples of a bit in a horse’s mouth, and a rudder of a ship. And if I asked you what the deadliest animal in the world would be…would you guess a tiger, elephant, or maybe a rhino? The real answer is the tiny mosquito that carries Malaria and kills millions of people yearly. Our tongue is one of the smallest parts of our body…but the power it has is potentially devastating. For just like one spark can start a forest fire…one ugly slip of the tongue can destroy a life.
Month: July 2019
Psalm 33:10-11 ” The Lord foils the plans of the nations; He thwarts the purposes of the peoples. But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever, the purposes of His heart through all generations. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.”
Psalm 2:1 asks the question, “Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain against the Lord?” It’s because within the cunning imagination of man is that prideful idea that we can control our own destiny…but this all just vanity. For God’s Will prevails over all… and He will carry out His plan and purpose for His glory. We may think we know the answers…but only God can see from beginning to end and around every corner of life.
Psalm 33:8-9 ” Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the people of the world revere Him. For He spoke, and it came to be; He commanded, and it stood firm.”
For just a moment today ponder this. God spoke, and the world as we know it was formed. He spoke, and everything we see was created…out of nothing. For all things on earth were God-ordained. But we also need to realize that God’s commands are very unique in that He requires inner commitment from us…not merely some external superficial obedience. For God is so great that His commands are not to be questioned…His creative work not challenged.
Acts 1:3 ” After His suffering, He showed Himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that He was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the Kingdom of God.”
After the Resurrection, Jesus spent 40 days with His disciples. But why? It was at the beginning of that 40 days that Jesus opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. (Luke 24:45) For over the 3 years the disciples had traveled with Jesus and watched His ministry, they had been collecting puzzle pieces. But it wasn’t until He opened their minds that all the puzzle pieces came together and they saw and understood the big picture.
Isaiah 29:15 ” Woe to those who go to great depths to hide their plans from the Lord, who do their work in darkness and think, ‘Who sees us? Who will know?’ “
Talk to someone who is struggling with a pornography addiction and sure enough they’ll use the excuse, “What I do in the privacy of my own home is my right.” And then they’ll follow it up with, “And I wasn’t hurting anyone with what I was doing alone at night.” They are rationalizing and attempting to explain away what they already know deep down in their heart is wrong. For we can’t hide anything from God’s sight. And no matter how dark it is…God still sees what we’re doing.
I Corinthians 13:1 ” And now I will show you the most excellent way. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have no love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.”
You’ve been around them too…people who are all talk and no action. They may speak eloquently and have great ideas…but they lack followup and dedication to actually get the work done. They make a lot of noise, but that’s all. Paul is showing us here that it’s the love of Christ in our hearts that make the difference between just making noise and changing the world for Him.
Isaiah 1:18 ” Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.”
In this verse God was confronting the nation of Judah. For they had been practicing religious festivals of their own design in direct rebellion against Him. In other words, they were taking God’s Word – adding and twisting it to fit their own desires and notions. Kinda sounds like religion today where God’s Word has been spun and misinterpreted to become more politically correct and not offensive anyone. But man’s job is not to reinterpret God’s Word in order to make everyone feel better. Man’s job simply is to obey what God has already written.
Romans 5:10 ” For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through His life!”
Think back a moment to your “BC” days. (Before Christ) Maybe you had heard about Jesus, but He was far from what you wanted in your life back then. You were content to be in charge…doing things your own way. But in your rebellion you were also alienated from God…spiritually dead and blithely headed to Hell. It was while you were still estranged from God that He reconciled you to Himself through Christ. (II Corinthians 5:18-19) It was while you were still in rebellion that Jesus redeemed you… taking on Himself your sins that you may have a right relationship with God…and eternal life. The bottom line is…long before you were thinking about God…He was thinking about you.
Genesis 3:19 ” By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”
Adam was made of the dust of the earth, for in Genesis 2:7 it tells us, “The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being.” Now this shows just how fragile we are, for without God intentionally filling our lungs with breath day in and day out, we are just a lifeless being. And when there’s no longer that spark of life within…our body returns to where we came.
James 2:14 ” What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him?”
James, the oldest half-brother of Jesus, was telling us here we should demonstrate our inward faith by outward actions. So it’s basically the difference between having living faith or lifeless faith. Between just giving lip-service to the needs we see around us or actually jumping in to help others. A few verses later James adds to this, “You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone.” (James 2:24) So in the life of a Believer, faith and deeds must go hand in hand…there is not one without the other…and so in this lies the big difference between living and lifeless faith.
Safetypinlove 