James 2

Notes from James 2:

• No Favoritism - God's Kingdom is promised to anyone who loves God. (2.1-7)

• Royal Rule of The Scriptures - "Love others as you love yourself." (2.8-11)

• All-or-None - God's commands are all-or-none, we can not pick and choose according to our liking. (2.8-11)

• We reap what we sow - (2.12-13)

• Demonstrate your faith through your action - "God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense." (2.14-18)

• Faith and works are interconnected - Faith expresses itself in works - our belief is demonstrated through our actions. We must have a child-like faith that leads to bold action. Abraham believed God and backed it up with action, led to Abraham being called "God's Friend." (2.21-24)

Main Idea of James 2: Seamless Unity of believing and doing. (2.25-26)

James 1

Notes from James 1 MSG

• Persevere and Endure. Don't look for the quick fix. Build and exercise your faith by overcoming challenges...this leads to maturity, proficiency, and development. (1.2-4)

Anyone 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.
~ James 1.12 ~

• Pray for Wisdom. Pray with the two B's (Boldness and Belief). God loves to answer this Prayer. (1.5-8)

• God does not trip us up. Our sin and lustful desires (which have a terrible snowball effect) trip us up. God is there to deliver us. (1.13-15)

• Stay On Course = No Distractions (1.16-18) and (vs 25)... (also see Ps 119.1). Every desirable (see Ps 34.4) and beneficial gift comes out of Heaven (1.16-18).

• God will Landscape us with His Word. (1.19-21)

• Act on God's Word (1.22-24). Our affirmation arrives through action. (1.25)

• Reach out. (specifically to the homeless and the loveless). Guard against corruption. (1.26-27)

Transformed

I was inspired from Mark Batterson's post the other day, titled, Rewiring The Mind.

He gave a great illustration from a study that was performed at the National Institutes of Mental Health. The study was on a finger-tapping exercise and it showed how we can actually create new neurons in our brains, a process called Neurogenesis.

Like Mark said in his post, we can juxtapose this with Romans 12.2:

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

I love this thought because as we read Scripture, our goal should not simply be a gain in knowledge. I am a trivia junkie with the best of them, but we must shift our hopes from answering all the Bible trivia on Jeopardy one day, to a desire of transformation and gaining the Mind of Christ.

This is so applicable to all areas of life as well. If our end goal is merely knowledge, then nothing will ever get done because we are not meshing it with action. Without a transformation, without a rewiring, without a Neurogenesis in our lives, then we will never:

Be good stewards
Walk By Faith
Obtain our New Year's Resolutions
Break a bad habit or start a good habit
Love our neighbor
Get in shape
Save and invest our finances wisely
Form good relationships

You name it, the list goes on and on... As humans, we represent the most intelligent of all life forms. But you must agree, that we are also rationally irrational. We know what is right and wrong, good or bad, yet we still do the same things over and over again. Why? Because we have not changed despite our wealth of knowledge.

So to live according to God's assignment in our lives and complete down to the last detail what He has called us to do, to achieve our hopes and dreams during this generation of life, we must have new synapses fire, we must start "finger-tapping" in all areas of our lives so that new connections will be made. Attitudes must change and paradigms must be shifted...

...Easy? Not quite, Newton's first law of motion does not only apply to mechanics and laws of physics. We also have a resistance to change, an inertia, in our daily activities and thought patterns. So it is time to take our knowledge and mesh our beliefs with our works...

How do we get transformed?
1. Dig into God's Word (Landscaped with The Word of God) and then Act on it!
2. Grab a Glimpse of God's Revelation...eliminating all distractions
3. Be men and woman of action...we will find delight and affirmation in the action...

> God's Word + Action = Transformation <

I love how James puts it in his famous, Faith In Action, section of Chapter 2. "Dear friends, do you think you'll ever get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything?

He goes on to say, how we have works of faith...The full meaning of "believe" in the Scripture sentence, "Abraham believed God and was set right with God," includes his action. It's that mesh of believing and acting that got Abraham named "God's friend." Is it not evident that a person is made right with God not by a barren faith but by faith fruitful in works?

So go forward today being renewed with God's Word and being transformed by Faith fruitful works.

Why a person would sit when he can soar, spectate when he can play,
or atrophy when he can develop is beyond me - Bill Hybels

Context For Miracles

Cool thought I heard from Erwin McManus in his "Beyond Us" Message titled Poverty/Generosity...He said:

"The Context for Miracles is Sacrifice."

When you ponder that thought, it is very true. Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice and it turned into the ultimate miracle. From the miracle of birth to the miracle of breath, most if not all miracles, come via sacrifice. Usually a sacrifice is linked to faith, and the faith leads to a miracle.

The hard part is that we tend to view a sacrifice as a difficulty...we simply need a paradigm shift...

...Look at it like an ROI, a Return On Investment...specifically a gain from an ROI...When our sacrifices lead to miracles, then what we receive always outweighs what we give, and the great thing is, according to Ephesians 2.10, God has already planned in advance for us to make some great investments!

Look forward to making some sacrifices (investments) for 2010! Soli Deo Gloria!