In Haiti I decided to read the book of Romans. When I finished the book of Romans, I didn’t know what to read next. I decided I might as well just keep reading so I started reading the books that end in “ians”. Out of all of the books Colossians was my favorite. Colossians is about faith, prayer, being thankful, patience, kindness, compassion, etc. After I finished those books, I just kept going until Revelation. Now I have a new favorite book. The book of James. If you look at my bible I wrote so many side notes about it, there is no room to write anything else! I loved this book so much that I wanted to write a blog about what I got out of it.
Chapter one is about temptation. In Haiti, we did a couple skits about Jesus being tempted but in James, it talks about how believers will be tempted. One verse that stood out to me in chapter one, was verse two and three. It says “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.” The chapter goes on to say how it is not God who temps you, it is the devil. The Devil wants to test your faith and lead you away from God. It is your job to keep the faith no matter what trials the devil throws at you. Verse thirteen says “when tempted, no one should say “God is temping me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He tempt anyone”. In verse nineteen through twenty-seven, it is about listening and doing. A verse in this section really stood out to me because I am guilty of it. Verses nineteen and twenty say “ Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires”. I can easily say I am guilty of saying whatever I am thinking and I think my mom can agree on that with me! On the race, they taught us that if someone does or says something that upsets us instead of confronting them about it right away, you go to the Lord about it, maybe wait a day or two and if you believe you should bring it up to that person then you can. It was really hard for me to do that in the beginning of the race because like I said before I say what is on my mind but now I wait and usually I realize that it isn’t as big of a deal as I thought it was.
Chapter two is about showing favoritism. Again, it is something I am guilty of but I’m learning from it. In Botswana, when we do children’s ministry, our host tells us not to show favoritism and that we have to play with all of the kids instead of singling out one of them which is very understandable. I have seen people pick favorites and I have picked favorites but when I read verses two through four, it made me realize what showing favoritism really looks like. It says “Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet.” Have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?” I love when the Bible shows you visuals of a situation so you can actually realize that it applies to you also. Verses fourteen though twenty-six is about faith and deeds. The second part of verse eighteen says “Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds.” Woah. Let that sit with you for a second. “I will show you my faith by my deeds”. I feel like every christian should live by this verse, I know I want to. Verse twenty-four says “You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone” which means sometimes it takes more than showing your faith to be considered righteous.
Chapter three is my favorite chapter out of the whole book of James and it is about taming your tongue. In verses four through six, it gives us two examples of perfect imagery about taming your tongue. It says “4 Take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. 5 Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. 6 The tongue also is a fire…” Wild right? Like it said, “the tongue is a small part of the body” but it is very very powerful. No matter what you say to someone, you can never unsay it. Verse nine says “With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings”. How can we worship at church or pray or read our bible but then go on and talk bad about or to one other? I realize how much our words mean and every human on this earth is guilty of it. Verse five is right when it says “the tongue is small part of the body, but it makes great boasts.” I really like verse eleven because it shows us how praising God and cursing humans can not mix. It says “Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring?” I love how the bible doesn’t sugar coat anything! What I learned from this chapter is that we all have to be careful of what we say because our tongue is truly powerful.
Chapter four is about submitting yourself to God and boasting about tomorrow. I found the “boasting about tomorrow’’ section very interesting. It is very short, it is only 4 verses long, but it is able to get the point across very clearly. Verses fourteen and fifteen say “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 mist that appears for a little while then vanishes.” Tomorrow isn’t promised. It is hard for me to wrap my head about that because being human I assume that tomorrow will happen. If tomorrow were to happen and you have plans, verse fourteen says “you do not even know what will happen tomorrow” which means your plans can always change. Verse fifteen says “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that” if it is Gods will, then it will happen but if it is not part of His will then it will not. When I first got to Botswana our first bible study that we did was about God’s will. Being in that mindset, it totally changed the plans I had for when I get home. If you ask my mom, she could probably tell you every idea I had since coming on the race for things I want to do when I get home because sometimes when we don’t have ministry, all we do is think! I want to start living in a way to take one day at a time like I have been doing since coming on the race. Since doing the Bible study, I have been living with the “if it is God’s will, it will happen” mindset and I absolutely love it.
Chapter five finished the book of James with the topics of patience, and the prayer of faith. The first section is mostly about what it says in verse eight “be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near.” The ‘prayer of faith’ passage is about praying for others. My favorite verses in this section are verses seventeen and eighteen “Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. He prayed for it to rain, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced crops.” These couple of verses show us that prayer does work. Sometimes we pray and everything will stay the same. Not every prayer will be answered and I struggle with the understanding of that sometimes. When you pray, the answer to your prayer will either be yes, no, or wait. Whatever we pray for might not happen right away, occasionally it will happen further down the road when were not expecting it. What I got out of the ‘prayer of faith’ section is that prayer is powerful and effective. Especially being on the race, I have learned so much about how powerful prayer can actually be.
Hopefully, after reading this blog you learned my point of view about the book of James and I highly suggest that you take time to read it too. Also, I have my last deadline coming up at the end of this month and I really hope you prayerfully consider donating whatever you can because if I do not get fully funded I will be sent home and I really don’t want that. Please if you can donate, I would appreciate it so much!
Until next blog my friends,
Sandy
