For today, One Year Bible Online links here.
The wicked are fearful of everyone because they know what they would do if they were in the other person’s shoes. The righteous have no fear for the very same reason.
God’s love for everyone is powerful and enduring. I will praise Him for all the good He has done and encourage others to do the same. If you have not experienced God’s love it is because you are not looking.
James tells us to be quick to listen and slow to speak, and even slower to anger. He goes on to tell us that anger does not produce the type of behavior God desires in us. Instead of getting angry we should get rid of the filth and immorality in our lives replacing them with the word of God. However, it is not enough to listen, we need to act on what we hear. This is true when we listen to other people, but even more so when we listen to the word of God.
If we listen to God’s word but do not act on what God says, the listening will do us no good. We can claim to be religious, but if we do not control the words we speak we are kidding ourselves. True religion means taking care of widows, orphans, and others who cannot care for themselves. It is not enough to tell people that you wish them well. If they are in need, we must do whatever is in our power to meet their needs. Faith that does not cause us to act righteously is worthless.
The lesson that James is trying to get through to us in this passage is that we should listen carefully to what others say they need and to what God tells us we should do. Then once we have heard what is being said to us, we should act according to God’s will.
There are so many lessons that can be learned from Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones. Today, it makes me think of congregations which have become dried up and dead. I remember a man who was serving as interim pastor for a congregation which had been struggling for years. He told someone that there was nothing wrong with letting a congregation die.
He was not exactly wrong… but he was wrong.
There is nothing wrong with a congregation dying, but who are we to say that God does not still have a purpose for a congregation, even one which appears to be already dead. Perhaps if that interim pastor had spoken a prophetic message to that congregation instead of preparing to bury it, the Spirit of God would have moved in it to accomplish a great work.
I currently attend a congregation that was in much the same state as the one that interim pastor said that about, at the same time. However, God sent the congregation I now attend a man who spoke a prophetic message. A man who called on the Spirit of God to breath new life into the congregation. Both congregations were in areas which desperately needed the love of God. In both cases the congregations are still there. But the first one is small and struggling still 30 years later. The other is vibrant and growing. The difference is that in one all leadership saw was dry bones, in the other leadership saw that God’s Spirit could breathe new life. I know of at least one other church leader who was called by God into the area of that struggling congregation, but he looked elsewhere because all he could see when he looked at that congregation was dry bones. I pray to God that He never let me dismiss something as dry bones when He desires to use me to bring His Spirit to breathe new life into it.