Listening and Doing - James 1:19-27

Hello Lovelies,
It's a snowy day here in the polar tundra. :) As I mentioned in a earlier post I would be talking about James 1- the study my church is doing-- which by the way is amazing.  I promised a post about what we are talking about and well the time has come for me to sit and write it.  So I posted the scripture so that you can see it as I make reference to it.  It's a fantastic set of verse which really are summed up in saying "put feet to your faith".  So let's dive on in.

James 1:19-27

Easy-to-Read Version (ERV)

Listening and Obeying

19 My dear brothers and sisters, always be more willing to listen than to speak. Keep control of your anger. 20 Anger does not help you live the way God wants. 21 So get rid of everything evil in your lives—every kind of wrong you do. Be humble and accept God’s teaching that is planted in your hearts. This teaching can save you.
22 Do what God’s teaching says; don’t just listen and do nothing. When you only sit and listen, you are fooling yourselves.23 Hearing God’s teaching and doing nothing is like looking at your face in the mirror 24 and doing nothing about what you saw. You go away and immediately forget how bad you looked. 25 But when you look into God’s perfect law that sets people free, pay attention to it. If you do what it says, you will have God’s blessing. Never just listen to his teaching and forget what you heard.

The True Way to Worship God

26 You might think you are a very religious person. But if your tongue is out of control, you are fooling yourself. Your careless talk makes your offerings to God worthless. 27 The worship that God wants is this: caring for orphans or widows who need help and keeping yourself free from the world’s evil influence. This is the kind of worship that God accepts as pure and good.

Let's break this passage down and go verse by verse.  Verse 19 says: "My dear brothers and sisters, always be more willing to listen than to speak. Keep control of your anger. " What can we pull from this verse: it's rather simple- always be willing to listen rather than speak.  Which if your like me is hard-I'm a talker.  But this verse is saying listen before you speak.  This can take many forms- Listen to God, Listen to friends, Listen to teachers, professors, Listen to family.  I think that the easiest example is when a friend calls you up with a problem instead of jumping to giving  advice slow down and just listen.  The challenge I have for you all is to : SIMPLY LISTEN THIS WEEK.

Verse 20- "Anger does not help you live the way God wants."  The New Living Translation says "Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires.  Anger is something that I could talk about for awhile.  But I looked up what anger means and what God says about Anger.  Anger means: a strong feeling of annoyance, displeasure, or hostility. People always say don't let the sun go down on your anger- and their right - anger is nasty. The devotional Fifty written by a bunch of speakers from True Lies ( which is a youth talk that covers sex to drugs to bullying and gives teens, parents and youth workers a Christian perspective) has a devotional on anger written by Roger Palmer which I want to share.  

"Have you ever lost your cool with someone? If you are living and breathing, you probably have!  Anger is a God-given emotion, but most of the time it is used improperly. I remember a time during the fall of my freshman yaer in college when my anger got the best of me.  At this time in my life, I had not surrendered my life to Christ yet.  My girlfriend and I were not getting along very well. A friend of mine and I were driving around and he began to ask me questions about my relationship with my girlfriend.  Well, as I began to talk, I began to get angry.  The more I talked, the angrier I got ( you need to know something about me, I am very animated and as I talk, I use my hand expressively) All of a sudden as I was talking and waving my hands around,I punched up and hit the windshield of my friend's car. The next thing I knew,the windshield shattered into a giant spider's web design.  you could imagine how surprised my friend and I were.  He looked at me and started screaming, "Don't hurt me! Don't hurt me!" We started laughing hysterically and then we had to decide how we were going to get his windshield fixed.  When your anger is left unchecked, you can end up doing something really foolish.  For me, it was just the cost of a windshield.  What has your anger cost you?"  

What does the bible say about anger? check out these verses and look them up. 

-James 1:5

- Ephesians 5:26-27

-James 1:19-20

Okay-Back to the verse by verse break down of the passage. Verse 21-" So get rid of everything evil in your lives—every kind of wrong you do. Be humble and accept God’s teaching that is planted in your hearts. This teaching can save you." What do we pull out of this verse- It's simple the very first line says" So get rid of EVERYTHING evil in your lives- EVERY kind of wrong you do.  So what is evil?  Let's once again define it: profound immorality, wickedness, and depravity, esp. when regarded as a supernatural force.  Now that we have defined evil the next question is What is evil? This is something that people sit around and discuss but for our purposes we will say rape, murder, and anything that you desire like drugs or alcohol that take your focus off of God and Godly things.  If you look at the NLT version of this verse is says " SO get rid of ALL the filth and evil in your lives..."  the second part of this verse is important too it says " Be humble and accept God’s teaching that is planted in your hearts. This teaching can save you"

What does it mean to be humble and accept God's teaching. Humble means "An admirable quality that not many people possess. It means that a person may have accomplished alot, or be alot but doesn't feel it is necessary to advertise or brag about it. " The second part of this verse says accept God's teaching.  This is big- It simply boils down to this: Do you believe God's words are true and Do you believe in God?  Believing in God is big!  Do you believe that He died for you? Here's the simply and beautiful thing about the bible: God made us, and loves us and He sent his own son(Jesus) to die for us so that we can live with Him forever.    But in order to do this we have to do believe that Jesus is the Savior of the world and of our lives and ACCEPT Him into our hearts and lives- this is doing just what these verses are saying rid your self of evil(sin) and accept God into your heart. This means turning away from your old life that is full of sin and turning to God and saying I can't but you can.  People often times get confused on how to ask God into their hearts it's simple you simple pray a prayer like this - (if you feel God pulling you to turn from your lifestyle pray the following prayer)

God,

I know I messed up and have been living life my own way.  But I have been wrong in trying to live life my way. I need you to help me.  I can't do live life on my own.  I need you in my heart and life as my Savior.  Please live in my heart and change me.  

Amen. 

** if you just prayed this the next step is to find a local church that believes in God if you need help finding a church please please email us at lovesjourney316@gmail.com and we will help you find a church,  after you find a church -- please tell someone who is a believer about your decision to follow God. And lastly  follow the bible and get baptized. ** 

let's look at verses 22-25 - which says " Do what God’s teaching says; don’t just listen and do nothing. When you only sit and listen, you are fooling yourselves.23 Hearing God’s teaching and doing nothing is like looking at your face in the mirror 24 and doing nothing about what you saw. You go away and immediately forget how bad you looked. 25 But when you look into God’s perfect law that sets people free, pay attention to it. If you do what it says, you will have God’s blessing. Never just listen to his teaching and forget what you heard." 

These verses are summed up best by saying: follow God's word - The bible is the instruction manual for life- it's a book that can guide us to Godly living and answer the age old question " What would Jesus Do?" 

Verses 26-27 say this "You might think you are a very religious person. But if your tongue is out of control, you are fooling yourself. Your careless talk makes your offerings to God worthless. 27 The worship that God wants is this: caring for orphans or widows who need help and keeping yourself free from the world’s evil influence. This is the kind of worship that God accepts as pure and good."  

Verse 27 in the NLT says " Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for the orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you." Simply put- Take care of the poor, and hurting

I want to end this blog with some question to think about or answer in your own quiet time :) 

1) what struggles do you have with slow to speak and quick to listen?

2) how well are you doing right now at hearing God's word?

3) if a garden is left on its own would it be overtaken by weeds? yes! absoulutely it would, well in the same way if we don't dive into God's Word and examine our own hearts what will happen?

4) what steps can we take to make sure we are cultivation our hearts to grown in God's word and to live it out in our lives?

5) why is James really focused on not just hearing the word but living it out in our lives? 

Thanks for reading this long blog but it's so important :) until next time lovelies.

Jessica