We went through the first 18 verses of the first chapter of James, and what's funny is that I have it memorized from a point in my life where I sought to memorize the whole book of James (only got through chapter 3). ANYWAY.
I'll come back to that in a sec.
I woke up this morning and went in for a fairly informal job interview. BUT I GOT THE JOB. I'm so happy. Like really. I have a job. God is faithful, just like He promises to be when we're faithful to Him. I had no doubts about that, but I'm thrilled that this was His plan for me! After that I went on a "run" (walk) with Alexa per usual, we had coffee, ate lunch, got some sun (I smell like tanning lotion), watched a movie, and hung out and junk. It was good. Then I ran home from her house since we didn't ACTUALLY run this morning, and I sweated a lot, then went to Launch at 7:00.
When I don't get to sing and worship God for a while, it makes me sad. It also has made me realize something about myself: I almost depend on music to worship God. Now, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but I know that music is my easiest and happiest way of worshipping God, and so I long for it constantly. I do worship Him in other ways too, but music is where we connect the best, so I feel lost without it sometimes. This is something I am working on, but I'm happy to say that I got to worship Jesus through song tonight! :D
Okay so James. Great great book of the Bible. My favorite actually.
v. 2-3:
"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."
Really this is something I've known and practiced for a while. If you ask anyone who knew me, they'd tell you that JOY is my favorite subject in the Bible. It should probably be love, but it's not. I love Joy. I love love too, but I love to talk about joy, to practice joy, and to show other people true joy. Which is a part of love. Bam. ACTUALLY I JUST HAD AN EPIPHANY. Joy is very self-focused. So maybe I'm selfish. Love is about other people. But really joy isn't about us - it's about God. Which makes it less self-focused. It just deals mostly with our own insides and not the people around us. A rather important concept, nonetheless.
Tonight we defined joy and happiness:
Happiness is circumstantial.
Joy is of God. Constant.
Those who do not know the love of Jesus can never understand joy for what it is.
I liked that.
v. 13:
"When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone."
God does not tempt. He allows us to be tempted by Satan that we may turn to God in faith as the tough crap comes at us - we are made to be tempted so that we may realized the goodness of God and trust Him even during trials because it makes us stronger. We must persevere. Luckily God always gives a way out when we're tempted, as long as we stay focused on Him and have JOY in the hope that is Jesus Christ.
v. 17 (my favorite new nugget of knowledge):
"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows."
This completely blew my mind with the amount of metaphorical nonsense God gave James to shove into this verse. Dude. Whoa.
- Everything good is of God; meaning everything bad is from Satan - though not necessarily directly from Satan, but as a result of perhaps previous temptations Satan gave man who fell for it because their faith was not strong enough.
- Father of lights: not darkness, for God is NOT evil (which is why He won't tempt us).
- Doesn't change; constant; same yesterday, today, and tomorrow - always; never stops loving us, never stops being the reason we have hope and JOY.
- Shifting shadows: No matter where WE turn, the shadow that is God in our lives does not change. I realized this metaphor tonight so fully and wonderfully that my entire realm of understanding was rocked!
My realization: God created this world and everything in it so specifically and so detailed so that He could give us accurate representations (on a smaller scale) of the love of Jesus and the power of Himself. Basically, all of creation is a metaphor for God and everything that He is - for everything that Christianity is supposed to be about.
Jesus, the Son of God, is the sun in this picture. We, little humans, are ourselves. Our shadows in this situation, God, because they are always with us when the sun (Son) is with us - Jesus with God is inevitable. Normally, on earth, when we are outside in the sun, we have a shadow. I mean we always have a shadow. But it changes when we turn around. It also changes when the sun moves and changes.
God is telling us that Jesus is the sun that always stays still - that always remains constant even when we are still moving around and going from place to place, at times deviating away from Him. I took it as Jesus is the sun that always stays at high noon. Directly above us, so we can't see any shadows. And He's there forever, never changing, never letting us out of His sight no matter how far we run away.
This, my friends, is the amazing power of God and the love of Jesus Christ.
Finally, if we fight this fight, push through the temptation with our faith in Jesus, and gain the perseverance that is believing and trusting in Jesus, we will be blessed.
v. 12:
"Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love Him."
Props to you for reading this all the way through.
God is good, all the time. Stay blessed, my friends.
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