James 5:16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.
James 5:19 My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring them back, remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the way of error will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins.
I feel like these are two very important verses for us to remember as Christians and followers of Christ. So many times we can become selfish in knowing God and in prayer, by not telling others about him and by forgetting to ask about how we can pray for others. In verse 16, it talks just on that. God is saying that just your single prayer can heal someone, and so you shall never forget to ask about and pray for your fellow believers and all the others around you. Because it may be your prayer that they need. Never forget that, and never let a prayer request slip by you. This is something I want to work on and grow in. If anyone has a prayer request or needs prayer, I’ll be here for you as a child of God, and sister in Christ. Now the other verse was huge to me as well. If I think about all the opportunities that I’ve passed up before in sharing God’s name, it makes me think about this verse. This verse tells us how powerful it is to just pray for and be there for another, to turn them away from a sinful path and from error, because that one extra thing you do could turn them away from it and save them. And here God reminds us that you who turns a sinner from the way of error will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins. Just think: the decisions you make on how to react towards someone, be there for someone, and share God with someone, can quickly take their life out of darkness and into light for eternity. Just think about all the sins that could be taken away from them because of your decision. Think about it. These verses really should speak a lot towards us.
James 4:11-12 Brothers and sisters, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against a brother or sister or judges them speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgement on it. There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you - who are you to judge your neighbor?
When God is the only true Judge, who are we to try and judge one another? When you judge another, you are sitting in judgement yourself, because God told us not to judge. God is the only one to say what is good and what’s bad, what’s right and what’s wrong, so why are we trying to pass each other’s judgements off of our own opinions? God is the only one to know your complete sincerity and to know your heart for all that it truly is. We only see a speck of what God sees and knows, so how can we even consider judging or looking down upon someone else’s life? God is in control, let Him be the only judge and decider upon us.
James 4:1-2 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God.
James 4:3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
James 4:4 You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of the God.
James 4:7-8 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
James 4:10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
Thank you thank you thank you Lord for all You’ve brought my way and in my path. Thank you so much for all the opportunities You’ve given me for what I love to do, photography. I am forever grateful for each of these opportunities. So many amazing things are happening and I really feel like I’m going places. Lead me where you want me God. Right now in one of my highest moments with all of this, I really feel like I’ve made it to this point all because of You. Don’t let me get carried away in the joy and excitement of it all, but to always give You the thanks for putting these opportunities in my path. You are so good and have blessed me so much in my life. Thank you thank you thank you. I love you so much Father. <3
James 4:13-14 Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
James 4:15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. So then, if you know the good you ought to do, and don’t do it, you sin.
This is something that I think all of us are guilty of. We always talk about things planned in the future, whether next weekend, or next year. It is something I myself do a lot. And it is not wrong to look forward to these things, but there is a point of bragging and boasting that becomes sinful. Once you become boastful of something, it usually becomes a dominant thought for the moment which becomes a distraction from time with God. These verses really got my attention because I could think right away of so many things that I’m looking forward to, that I think about and talk about all the time, about how I’m going to do this, or going to go there. And then when the verse said, “why, you don’t even know what will happen tomorrow”, that completely stopped me and made me put things in a different perspective, because it is so completely true. God is the only one that knows what will happen past this very moment. In 5 minutes, in 5 months, in 5 years. All the things you boast about could possibly not even be there anymore. WE may not even be here anymore. So live in the moment with the time that you have, and be excited and joyful about coming times because God wants us to be joyous in our days, but rejoice Him for all that you get to do and all that you receive, and just remember that if it’s in God’s plan, you will live another day and get to experience new, wonderful things.
James 1:19-20 My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because our anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.
James 1:21 Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.
James 1:22-25 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Those who listen to the word but do not do what it says are like people who look at their faces in a mirror and, after looking at themselves, go away and immediately forget what they look like. But those who look intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continue in it - not forgetting what they have heard but doing it - they will be blessed in what they do.
James 1:26-27 Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. 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.
I think this is clearly, perfectly said. I feel like there’s not much further to say, because this is said so well. It has a lot to do with what I blogged on yesterday though: faith without deeds being worthless. You can’t just speak with your tongue that you love and worship God, but then do nothing with that. As it says here, that “religion” you carry is worthless, if it is only spoken with you mouth yet without deeds. But as much as our human nature wants to, we are not in the right place to judge anyone for this, because I feel like it is the hypocrites that we judge the most. It is only God that can judge one’s heart because He is the only one that knows every single one of your intentions, from the past, present, and the future.
James 2:14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if people claim to have faith but have no deeds? Can such faith save them?
James 2:17 …faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
James 2:19 You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that…
James 2:24 You see that people are justified by what they do and not by faith alone.
James 2:26 As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.
This is a section that really reaches out to me because so many times I think about all the things I could be doing in service, but just “never get around to it”. I mean I feel like I love all people and follow everything along those lines as of deeds, but as for service.. that is something that I know I could be stronger in. Many times I get so caught up in building my faith every day that I forget to spend time in service for God. I feel like many times we put the harder work to the side, the things that “take up our time”. But that is what God called us to do: service work, spreading his name to others and helping others out of the love God gave us. As it says in these verses, you are nothing in your faith without deeds. We must act out our faith and prove to everyone how much we love our God to want to serve Him. We shall not be believers that are all talk, with no action. Love with your heart, serve with your hands.
James 2:15-16 Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?
We can talk all we want about the things we want to do or are going to do.. but when will we actually live them out, day by day? That needs to start now. We need to be a nation of believers, not hidden by and behind our faith any longer. It’s time to reach out.
“If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. Those who doubt should not think they will receive anything from the Lord; they are double-minded and unstable in all they do.”
—> Recently, I told my friend to pray for wisdom and patience along with other things, and she told me that she was scared to pray for certain things because she knows that God could test her to see if she deserves or can handle those things. And when she told me that, it really made me think that so many of us doubt or second guess ourselves on things that we pray for. Either because of the reason she had (in fear of receiving an answer not in the way we want it), or just doubting in the back of your mind anything genuine that you are praying for. This verse really stopped me when I was reading, in how it said, “those who doubt should not think they will receive anything from the Lord”. And then in the first part of it how it says to ask God and it will be given to you generously without finding any fault. We must never fear the way things work out in our own eyes, but always trust God’s plans and ways and always know that His wisdom that is given to us will always be perfect for our lives.
