22nd Sunday after Pentecost
For many Christians, our faith often resembles the design of a home improvement store. Many times we compartmentalize our faith. We choose certain parts of following Jesus that we like, but then we avoid the other departments of living for God. Isn't this true when we live out our faith. There have probably been times in your life when your Christian life looked pretty nice on Sunday, but the other six days of the week your life was a little sketchy. James lays out a faith that works itself out in the details of life, every single day of the week. Sunday...Monday...Tuesday...and at any time of the day...7:00am, 3:00pm, 8:00pm, 1:00 am. James presents a faith that is to be lived out ALL DAY. EVERY DAY. This so important, not only because it is the way we glorify God in all of life. It is also important because people want to know that Christianity is relevant and that Christians are sincere.
“The single greatest cause of atheism in the world today is Christians: who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, then walk out the door and deny him by their lifestyle. This is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.”
– Brennan Manning
“The single greatest cause of atheism in the world today is Christians: who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, then walk out the door and deny him by their lifestyle. This is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.”
– Brennan Manning
James 4:1-12
Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures. Adulterers! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you suppose that it is for nothing that the scripture says, ‘God yearns jealously for the spirit that he has made to dwell in us’? But he gives all the more grace; therefore it says,
‘God opposes the proud,
but gives grace to the humble.’
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into dejection. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
Do not speak evil against one another, brothers and sisters. Whoever speaks evil against another or judges another, speaks evil against the law and judges the law; but if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. There is one lawgiver and judge who is able to save and to destroy. So who, then, are you to judge your neighbor?
-New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures. Adulterers! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you suppose that it is for nothing that the scripture says, ‘God yearns jealously for the spirit that he has made to dwell in us’? But he gives all the more grace; therefore it says,
‘God opposes the proud,
but gives grace to the humble.’
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into dejection. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
Do not speak evil against one another, brothers and sisters. Whoever speaks evil against another or judges another, speaks evil against the law and judges the law; but if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. There is one lawgiver and judge who is able to save and to destroy. So who, then, are you to judge your neighbor?
-New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
