Thanks for the comments and insight and to everyone else I am sure you will follow. On to Chapter 3:16-18
"Choose to devote yourself fully to God rather than to your own selfish and wordly desires. Devote yourself to the Lord, and godly wisdom and righteosness will begin to grow in your life."
We cannot serve two masters. We cannot say we love and serve God and then live ungodly lives. Good works and a controlled tongue is the kind of life James is calling us to. I think today is a good day to make a new covenant with our lives and especially our tongues to please the Lord. I am sure all of us have said and did things that have caused us to stumble. The imagery that James gives of a ship being controlled by a small rudder brings insight to the messes we make in our lives. If your mouth has gotten you in trouble and steered you off direction let's point our rutters in a new direction and sail for calmer seas. Is Christianity as simple as controlling ones mouth and living a selfless life?
In Him,
Joe
2 comments:
I wonder if it is possible to completely live out this verse. It's so beautiful and perfect and right. I have hope knowing that the full rewards of heaven will give us this wonderfully held tounge and fully devoted heart. It is so hard to stay completely sold out and devoted one hundred percent of the time. I go through these stages where i am on fire and filled with the Holy Spirit and I AM has captured my whole heart and soul and mind for one moment, and then my own selfishness overcomes whatever was working in me and i am a normal, awful human being again. But then He restores me and i open the word and get on my knees and i am there with Him again, even closer than before.
I wish i could just rely on His grace to fulfill me in every single moment of my existence. But, unfortunately, i am not perfect, and i have these ups and downs that get in the way of His power.
Why do we let this happen? Why can we not be more faithful in the little things?
I love Him, but i forget Him at times.
I want nothing more than to be with Him, but i neglect Him for work, or my friends, or a book, or ballet...or even church.
Don't we all do this?
Why can't we stop?
I think that's why they call it amazing grace, I am so blessed by the comment and find myself in the same place so many times. It's in our broken fallen state that brings us even closer to Him. Thanks for the comment.
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