Introduction: The book of James is an epistle (letter) written by our Lord's half-brother that teaches us how genuine faith is always proven by good works.
James 1:4 — Patience is the proof of spiritual maturity. We know we’ve arrived spiritually when we can sit still and wait on God without angst or alarm.
James 1:4 — The man who can wait on God has spiritually arrived. It is a sure sign of spiritual maturity to patiently leave things in God’s hands rather than impetuously taking them into your own hands.
James 1:17 — Every good and perfect gift in our lives comes from above, from the Father of lights, who never turns away from His goodness to us to cast any shifting shadows upon us.
Apart from God there is no good and away from God there is no light!
James 1:20 —The cliched fists of a hothead can never serve as holy hands that do God’s work.
James 1:22 — Biblical doctrine is not intended to be merely learned, but lived out. As D. L. Moody taught, “Every Bible should be bound in shoe leather.”
James 1:23-25 — The Bible is a mirror that we look into to see who we are in Christ. Afterward, we should never forget who we are, lest we fail to do what the Bible says and live our lives as a Christian should.
James 2:14 — A faith that does not work is an unprofitable faith.
It’s not faith with works that saves us, but a faith that works that saves us!
James 2:26 — Just as your body without your spirit is dead, so is the body of Christ without the Spirit of Christ. Many a contemporary church is actually a corpse, built and operated by the power of man’s flesh rather than by the power of God’s Spirit.
James 3:2-8 — The Bible says a man who can tame his tongue is a perfect man, because any man who can stop sinning with his tongue can stop sinning altogether. Unfortunately, as the Bible also teaches, no sinful man can tame his tongue nor achieve sinless perfection.
A wagging tongue is worse than wicked hands and men slip far more often with their tongue than with their feet.
James 3:2, 8 — If one can bridle his tongue he can bridle his temperament, but since man is incapable of taming his tongue, there is no such thing as a sinless man.
James 3:6 — The Christian’s tongue should be set on fire from Heaven—spreading the Gospel—not on fire from Hell—spreading gossip. (see also Acts 2:3)
James 4:4 — Make no mistake about it; to get along with the world you must go along with the world, but if you’re going along with the world you’re not getting along with God.
James 4:6 — God frowns on and opposes the proud—the self-fixated—but smiles on and gives grace to the humble—the self-forgetful.
It is always the humble, never the haughty, to whom God’s grace is given.
Although men have no cause to be proud, the God-resistant sin of pride is still common among men.
OH, WHY SHOULD THE SPIRIT OF MORTAL BE PROUD (By William Knox)
Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
Like a swift, fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud,
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,
Man passeth from life to his rest in the grave.
The leaves of the oak and willow shall fade,
Be scattered around and together be laid;
And the young and the old, and the low and the high,
Shall moulder to dust and together shall lie.
The infant and mother attended and loved;
The mother that infant's affection who proved,
The husband that mother and infant who blessed,
Each, all, are away to their dwellings of rest.
The maid, on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye,
Shone beauty and pleasure––her triumphs are by;
And the memories of those who have loved her and praised
Are alike from the minds of the living erased.
The hand of the king 'that the scepter hath borne;
The brow of the priest that the mitre hath worn;
The eye of the sage and the heart of the brave,
Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave.
The peasant, whose lot was to sow and to reap;
The herdsman, who climbed with his goats up the steep;
The beggar, who wandered in search of his bread,
Have faded away like the grass that we tread.
The saint, who enjoyed the communion of Heaven,
The sinner, who dared to remain unforgiven,
The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just,
Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust.
So the multitude goes, like the flower of the weed,
That withers away to let others succeed;
So the multitude comes, even those we behold,
To repeat every tale that has often been told.
For we are the same our fathers have been;
We see the same sights our fathers have seen;
We drink the same stream and view the same sun,
And run the same course our fathers have run.
The thoughts we are thinking our fathers would think;
From the death we are shrinking our fathers would shrink;
To the life we are clinging they also would cling;
But it speeds from us all like a bird on the wing.
They loved, but the story we cannot unfold;
They scorned, but the heart of the haughty is cold;
They grieved, but no wail from their slumber will come;
They joyed, but the tongue of their gladness is dumb.
They died; aye! they died; we things that are now,
That walk on the turf that lies over their brow,
And make in their dwellings a transient abode,
Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road.
Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,
We mingle together in sunshine and rain;
And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge,
Still follow each other, like surge upon surge.
'Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a breath,
From the blossoms of health to the paleness of death;
From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud,
Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
James 4:7 —Christians are to resist the devil and reckon themselves dead to sin, not resist sin and reckon the devil dead to them. Doing the latter rather than the former not only gives sin an upper hand over you, but also gives Satan a free hand with you. (Romans 6:11)
James 5:16 — Earnestness is essential to prayer and fervency a fundamental. As Adam Clark taught, “Prayer requires more of the heart than the tongue.” Words without heart to Heaven never go.
James 5:17-18 — As we learn from the life of Elijah, secret communion with God and prevailing prayers to God enable us, as they did him, to not only be confident and courageous for God, but also powerful witnesses of God.
Although Elisha asked, “Where is the Lord God of Elijah,” a better question today is: “Where are the Elijahs of the Lord God?” (2 Kings 2:14)
BACK TO TWEETS BY THE BOOKS
