James chapter 1

This looks VERY long but I am breaking down each verse. Don't be intimidated. I write like a 5 year old. My grammar stinks, my spelling is stinkier and I derail a lot so just hang on!! :)

Before I share my thoughts with you on chapter 1, I must tell you how excited I am about what God is doing! I am overwhelmed with joy right now because of all the women who have emailed to let me know they will be reading along with me. Friends, facebook friends, old friends, new friends, blogging friends and STRANGERS have joined me in this study on James. The reason I am most excited is I KNOW God is the one who gave me this idea and the proof of that is in all of the emails I have received! God rocks!

Last night was my husband's first night of coaching basketball at the YMCA and my six year old's first practice. As we pulled into the parking lot of the YMCA for practice, we gasped. There was NO PARKING. Jeremy said, "What is going on?" Instantly I knew! "Babe, it's the NEW YEAR! All of these people are working out!!" Sure enough we walked in and the treadmills were buzzing, the weight machines were clanking and the the sweat was dripping! A full house, no doubt. As we turned the corner for the gym, we saw classrooms with aerobics and kickboxing and YMCA employees everywhere giving tours to the New Year enthusiasts looking to get healthy. I almost felt lazy walking in to go sit on a bleacher while my son practiced. Passing all of those sweaty people made me want to scream "JUST SO YOU KNOW, I RUN. I RUN A LOT!"

All of that to say, I am very excited about your enthusiasm to join me in this study! Right now we are all excited and ready to grow and dig through God's word. We are like all those people at the "Y". We want to get healthy! If you are anything like me those first few days of a new study you love! You are reading and marking your bible with highlighters, taking notes and looking for Him in everything you do. Even though the book of James is only 5 chapters, you will be amazed at how quickly you can lose your enthusiasm. Let's stick with it!!! I already know God is probably not wanting me to stop with JAMES. I am already feeling like there is another book He would like me to explore with those of you interested. So here we go!

Oh and let me explain to some of you who don't know this. There are different translations of the Bible. If you go to http://www.biblegateway.com/, you can look at the verse in the different translations. Sometimes I like to look at the different translations because it shows me something new. I can read a verse I have read a hundred times and get something brand new when I try read it in The Message opposed to the NIV. I probably will not hit every single verse in each chapter but I have tried to really pray through and share what I feel I need to share. If there was something I did not mention, please share what you are getting out of it in the comment section.

JAMES 1

2-4 Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don't try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.

I chuckle when I look at this verse. So you mean I am supposed to consider health issues, money issues, relational issues, tragedy, pain and anything that could bring about a really crappy day a GIFT? Every single time I read this verse I think of someone in my life who endured horrible, horrible pain in their life and as they went through it, you would have never known it. This man was constantly praising God. I would pass him in the halls at church singing, humming, whistling. It was amazing to see that underneath the pain, the trial, the mess that his true colors showed peace. Now not everyone has Bill's amazing way of handling adversity. It's rare to see. But God has shown me in my own life how all of the things I faced as a child and teenager created something very strong in me. My pain truly has become a gift in my life because it has forced me to rely on Jesus for everything. Are you in a trial? Are you watching your child struggle through a sickness? Are you facing divorce? Or you could be like one of my readers who emailed me explaining that her husband is only thirty-two years old and has been diagnosed with a terminal illness. How is your faith being tested? And are you trying to get out of it prematurely?

5-8 If you don't know what you're doing, pray to the Father. He loves to help. You'll get his help, and won't be condescended to when you ask for it. Ask boldly, believingly, without a second thought. People who "worry their prayers" are like wind-whipped waves. Don't think you're going to get anything from the Master that way, adrift at sea, keeping all your options open.

Yesterday morning I got an email from a blogging friend who will also be reading along in James. She has some major changes coming to her family. It could mean a possibility of moving to a different state or it could mean that her family would stay put and her in laws (she calls them in-loves) would be moving, leaving her family in a state without friends or family. I could sense in her email that she had definitely given it over to God but she was still kind of worrying about it in her mind. This morning I was wide awake at 4am thinking about her email and this morning when I re-read James 1 in The Message translation, I KNEW this verse was for her. No I don't think my friend is a wind-whipped wave. :) But I do believe that she and all of us can ask BOLDLY for God's help and He will show up. When my children ask me for help, they ask me knowing I will help them. Why would I not? Why would our Father not help us? Why would He not give us an answer when we need to know something like, "Should we stay put or should we move? Should I take this job or should I wait for another one to come along?" It's not as complicated as we make it. I challenge you to look to Him for help just as your children look to you.

9-11When down-and-outers get a break, cheer! And when the arrogant rich are brought down to size, cheer! Prosperity is as short-lived as a wildflower, so don't ever count on it. You know that as soon as the sun rises, pouring down its scorching heat, the flower withers. Its petals wilt and, before you know it, that beautiful face is a barren stem. Well, that's a picture of the "prosperous life." At the very moment everyone is looking on in admiration, it fades away to nothing.

I thought about this verse in a new way this time. I looked at from the angle of how we sometimes look into people's lives and think they have it all. We think their marriage is perfect, their bank account is overflowing and that they are the modern day Ward and June Cleaver. Last April I attended the funeral of an old friend. When I knew her, she was in her early twenties, newly married, gorgeous, the most incredible female singer i had ever heard, talented beyond belief, perfect figure and the list goes on and on. She could have spit in my face and I still would have wanted to be her friend. There was a draw to her. I have been thinking about Vanessa a lot lately and the impression she left on my life. Everyone wanted to be friends with her, near her, know her or know about her. I truly believe she was favored by God and he entrusted her with an amazing ability to draw people in. But those who did not know her, had no idea what went on in her life. This woman endured pain that you and I could only imagine. She was unable to have children, she had a medical condition forcing her to use pain medication which later led to an addiction. Then one day she had a horrible headache and died a few days later after collapsing at the hospital. She was only 34 years old. Before I had the chance to know her, I would sit in the crowd at church and think about how perfect her life must have been. Without even knowing her, I felt insecure and ugly. I truly believed she had it all, without knowing the story of her life. This woman was a Godly woman and she has left a legacy that will last forever. The favor she had was given with a price. Her pain became her gift. The anointing on her life was costly but life changing.

I know I have kind of derailed a bit on this verse. But when I thought about this verse, I kept thinking about how we look into the lives of others and think everything is perfect when it really is NOT. We all have seasons of prosperity and we all have seasons of poverty. It may not even involve money but our families, our health. It shows me how much we should work to be on the same team. Cheering one another on!

12Anyone who meets a testing challenge head-on and manages to stick it out is mighty fortunate. For such persons loyally in love with God, the reward is life and more life.

Have you ever thought about your reward in Heaven? Did you ever think that your life may be filled with pain and you may endure forever and never see it end until you see Jesus face to face. What if the reward does not come here on earth? What if the reward does not come until Heaven? Hmm! Something to chew on.

13-15 Don't let anyone under pressure to give in to evil say, "God is trying to trip me up." God is impervious to evil, and puts evil in no one's way. The temptation to give in to evil comes from us and only us. We have no one to blame but the leering, seducing flare-up of our own lust. Lust gets pregnant, and has a baby: sin! Sin grows up to adulthood, and becomes a real killer.

WOW! Did you see that? Lust gets pregnant, and has a baby: sin! Sin grows up to adulthood, and becomes a real killer. I am thinking about what has come into my life that I have allowed to grow. It's easy to think about men and women who have affairs, become addicted to pornography or something else very obvious and evident. But what about those hidden things no one sees? What about gossip, lying, envy? There are so many things as women we allow to come into our minds and take residence. I have "what if's" fly in under the radar screen all the time and before I know it, I am believing the "what if"! The lies in my head have become one of the biggest KILLERS in my life. How about you? What has become the REAL KILLER in your life?

16-18 So, my very dear friends, don't get thrown off course. Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light. There is nothing deceitful in God, nothing two-faced, nothing fickle. He brought us to life using the true Word, showing us off as the crown of all his creatures.

Last month when I ran the half marathon in Dallas, we saw on the news how one of the professional runners was in first place for the half marathon and got off track. He was ahead by a couple of minutes in the race. No one could be seen behind him and when the half marathon course split from the full marathon course, he went the wrong way. There was a HUGE sign in front of him pointing him to the right direction. I know it was huge because I saw it! :) But somehow he strayed and almost a mile into it, the marathon workers were finally able to get his attention and direct him to the correct course. At this point he is behind, no longer winning. When I watched it on tv after the race, my heart felt his anguish. You could see him yelling, throwing his hands up in the air. How could he have made such a costly (prize money) mistake? How could he have lost his chance at a new personal record for his time? It only takes a second to get us off course. We all do it! I've done it numerous times!!

Lord, help us to stay on course!!!!

19-21 Post this at all the intersections, dear friends: Lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue, and let anger straggle along in the rear. God's righteousness doesn't grow from human anger. So throw all spoiled virtue and cancerous evil in the garbage. In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life.

Another WOW verse for me! I love that! POST THIS AT ALL INTERSECTIONS! Now in my marriage I can admit that my anger does not straggle in the rear. Ha! More like my anger leads the carpool lane as I honk to get around everyone else. In almost every area of my life, except my marriage, I can bring it under submission. But put me in a disagreement with my husband and anger will show up every single time! So what if I allowed God to "landscape" my character with His Word and I could truly let anger straggle along in the rear? That would be a HUGE victory for me!!! Where is your anger showing up? Something to think about.

22-24 Don't fool yourself into thinking that you are a listener when you are anything but, letting the Word go in one ear and out the other. Act on what you hear! Those who hear and don't act are like those who glance in the mirror, walk away, and two minutes later have no idea who they are, what they look like.

25 But whoever catches a glimpse of the revealed counsel of God—the free life!—even out of the corner of his eye, and sticks with it, is no distracted scatterbrain but a man or woman of action. That person will find delight and affirmation in the action.

There is nothing more distracting to my day than me being scatterbrain. It's that out-of-order feeling you get when your kitchen is a wreck, laundry is all over the place and you decide to take the Christmas decor down in the midst of the mess. It's that feeling of not knowing what to do next so you walk from room to room without any purpose. Or those moments when you know you need to pay bills but you have not even organized them or figured out what is due. You are literally all over the place and ineffective! I think women probably deal with this on a much grander level than men. I blame Eve. :) When you go back and read in Genesis, you will see she was all over the place. Eve stayed in her mind. You can see this as she explains to the serpent that they can eat the fruit. I don't know why exactly but I just sense she was full of "worrisome thoughts" so she decided to take action into her own hands and then convinced her husband to do the same. She was distracted quite easily. Men are great at staying on task (most of them) and getting the job done. But us girls like to be all over the place. We are the queens of multi tasking. I don't know about you but multi tasking can also be a curse! I pray that we can become women who are not fickle, scatterbrained and all over the board in our heads but women with purpose and direction. Our yes will be yes and our no will be NO! Praise God! We WILL follow through! We WILL meet our GOALS! We WILL get healthy!

26-27 Anyone who sets himself up as "religious" by talking a good game is self-deceived. This kind of religion is hot air and only hot air. Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world.

We say we are a lot of things. We are great at talking ourselves up but do we really believe God LOVES us? If we truly believe God loves us, we would be reaching out. Do we truly LOVE God or do we LOVE this world?

As I got about half way through this chapter, I realized that there was sooooooo much meat in here. There is so much in this one chapter that I needed a doggy bag for today! I need more! I am not finished with this meal. So I ask you to stay with me on James chapter 1 for one more day. I feel like there is more to get from it and I really want to get EVERYTHING God wants me to get. I want to be CHANGED!!! How about you?