Jeff Tacklind’s message on James 4:11-17
James 1:22
“Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.”
James 2:18
“But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.”
James 4:6-8
“Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” 7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.”
Psalm 139:13-16
13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
James 4:11-12
11 Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, 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. 12 There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?
“When words are many, sin is not absent, but he who holds his tongue is wise.” Proverbs 10:19
James 4:13-17
13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— 14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. 17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.
“Love protects us from nothing, even as it unexplainably sustains us in all things. Access to this love is not limited by our finite ideas of what it is or what it should be. Rather, this love overwhelms our abilities to comprehend it, as it so unexplainably sustains us and continues to draw us to itself in all that life might send our way.” James Finley
“The idea of reaching `a good life’ without Christ is based on a double error. Firstly, we cannot do it; and secondly, in setting up `a good life’ as our final goal, we have missed the very point of our existence. Morality is a mountain which we cannot climb by our own efforts; and if we could we should only perish in the ice and unbreathable air of the summit, lacking those wings with which the rest of the journey has to be accomplished. For it is from there that the real ascent begins. The ropes and axes are `done away’ and the rest is a matter of flying.” C. S. Lewis. God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics
Questions:
- Where do I find myself playing judge? What am I threatened by in those I criticize? How do they remind me of my own weaknesses? How can they help me grow?
- Am I inviting God into my dreams and plans? Am I willing to trust God when He is saying no? Do I really believe that He has my best in mind?
- How can I increase my practice of submission? Find times during the day when you can recalibrate, repent, and readjust.