YOU ARE THE FIRST FRUITS
James 1:1-18
PROPER GREETING
V:1 James, a servant of God
and of the Lord Jesus Christ,
To the twelve tribes scattered
among the nations:
Greetings.
Before you start a
conversation with someone, a greeting can bless the
fellowship. Good Morning, Good
Evening, and Good Afternoon are
greetings that express your
desire for a blessing to them.
They are short prayers. Pray for God’s best for others.
All good comes from the Lord.
What you bind on earth is bounded.
Don’t let someone define who
you are. Tell them who you are. If people
define you, they will do it
according to their opinions. James, at the start
of the conversation, said I am
a servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
It would be better to let
people debate what you said than to let them
label you.
When you humble yourself
before the Lord in the presence of men, God will
lift you.
The text was written to the 12
tribes of Israel, many of whom had been scattered
throughout the world. During
Paul’s missionary journeys, he found Jews in
other countries who worshiped
God in their synagogues. On the day of Pentecost,
there were Jews in Jerusalem
from every nation under heaven. (Acts 2:5}.
This would indicate that the
letters of the New Testament were copied
and circulated to Jews
aboard.
Time and distance do not stop
the movement of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
God used the celebration of
Passover to bring people together. They came
and heard the first message of
the Gospel.
Our job as believers is to
proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
THE MENTAL ATTITUDE OF A
BELIEVER
V:2 Consider it pure joy, my
brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the
testing of your faith develops perseverance. 4 Perseverance must finish its
work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
It takes a change in your
attitude to experience trouble in your life with joy.
To walk around all day with
trouble and be joyful can only be accomplished
through faith. We have to stop
for a moment and see God's purpose for allowing trials in our lives. God allows
trials to develop and mature us. A new outfit can look good on the rack, but
how does it fit you?
We all have been given a
measure of faith, but our faith grows when it is tested.
We can say we trust God, but
we need to have some trouble we have been
through with God to have a
testimony. The more trouble we experienced with
God, the stronger our
testimonies will be.
God wants us to get to a point
when we see trouble coming, we see the joy in
our midst. Trouble teaches us
to rely on God and wait on Him with
assurance to work out our
problems. When we learn to experience trials
with confidence we will know
we are maturing.
Matthew Henry put it this way;
let us see trials as an action of God's Love
toward us. Let patience and
not passion be at work in us.
SEEK WISDOM
V:5 If any of you lacks
wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault,
and it will be given to him. 6 But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt,
because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.
7 That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a
double-minded man, unstable in all he does.
God called us for good works.
He certainly wants to be wise as we work. It is one thing to know God's Word.
It is another thing to use God’s Word wisely applying them to life
circumstances.
It takes wisdom to know you
need God’s help. It takes a humble spirit to go
to God for help before you get
in trouble. It is a choice we make to go to
God before we make a decision.
God is waiting on us to come to Him for
direction. Not only is God waiting, but He wants to give
us more wisdom
than we need. The next thing
we see is God is not concerned about the number of
mistakes we have made before
we come to Him. He waits with open arms.
The third thing we see is that
God expects us to come to Him assured that
He will give us all the wisdom
we need to handle any problem.
The fourth thing we see is
don't come to God asking with doubt in our minds.
God knows whether you fully
trust Him. A person with doubt is straddling the fence between God and the
world. You can’t have it both ways. It is either God or the world. When our work
is as unto the Lord, He will not
refuse to answer our prayers.
THE PURPOSE OF TRIALS
V:12 Blessed is the man who
perseveres under trial because when he has stood the test, he will receive the
crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.
God has designed trials to
increase our faith and thus improve our mental state.
It is under trials that we
learn to patiently wait on the Lord standing fast on His promises. Successfully
enduring trials set us up for future blessings. There are future blessings that
happen while we are alive and there is the blessing of eternal life. We will be perfect and lacking
nothing in our eternal state.
FIGHT TEMPTATIONS
V:13 When tempted, no one
should say, "God is tempting me." For God cannot be tempted by evil,
nor does he tempt anyone; 14 but each one is tempted when, by his evil desire,
he is dragged away and enticed. 15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives
birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
Some problems come our way
that we can do nothing about. Then
there are problems that we
cause because of our lust. Satan the tempter is
on the prowl looking for any
weakness to influence us into sin.
Satan can't tempt us if our
focus is on God and His righteousness. It's when we
take our eyes off God that
Satan comes in. God will not tempt us, but we
allow ourselves to be tempted.
We know the difference between right and
wrong. We chose wrong when
allowing our lust to control us. When lust controls
us, we are headed down the
wide road of sin. Let us not deceive ourselves
that a “little” sin is ok.
THE FIRST FRUITS
V:16 Don't be deceived, my
dear brothers. 17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from
the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.
18 He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind
of first fruits of all he created.
God consistently gives us good
gifts. The quality of His gifts does not change.
God knows the times when gifts
are needed to encourage and lift us.
There are gifts of knowledge,
gifts of wisdom, and gifts of love expressed
in times we can most
appreciate them. There are the gifts of His righteousness,
His compassion, His tolerance,
and His forgiveness. The most important
gift is His Son who died for
our sins and makes us the first fruits
of His creation.
The Good News is we were
chosen by God to receive the Word. The question is
how do you know you were
chosen by God? I think you know when you study
the Word and have a spiritual
understanding which can only be given by the
indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
1 Corinthians 2:14
The man without the Spirit
does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are
foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually
discerned.
The Lord’s grace and mercy are
good gifts that endure forever.
THANK GOD FOR CHOOSING US
TO BE HIS FIRST FRUITS
Rev. M. Mitchell
No comments:
Post a Comment