...I hope.
But it ain't easy.
As I work to memorize the book of James, the scriptures are really beginning to penetrate my heart and my mind--praise the Lord! There is so much crammed in such a small book and it is SO rich. I happen to be doing the Beth Moore study on James, which encourages the memorization over 5 months. Whew...I'm glad that I'm working on memorizing this over a year. I definitely need the extra time to just meditate on the depth of these 108 verses!
Talk about zingers of truth!
I am getting cut to the very marrow of my being. I am learning more and more how vile I am and how much I need Jesus to consume me. I am humbled and blessed and encouraged and torn down and built up and overwhelmed and...well, it's a lot.
As Beth Moore so succinctly put it, the summary of James on faith is: LIVE IT!
When he says not to show favoritism, I am fully convicted that I show favoritism in a multitude of ways, some subtle and some glaringly obvious.
When he says the prayer offered in faith brings healing, I question if I'm praying with true faith. Sometimes I pray kind of wishy-washy prayers because I don't know what God's will is in a specific situation. I don't need to know...that's why I'm praying. Duh!
When he says that the religion of someone who cannot keep a tight rein on his or her tongue is worthless, I recoil. Seriously. It's not mediocre. It's not alright. It's WORTHLESS.
When he says to ask God for wisdom, okay...I do that consistently. But when he says to believe when you ask and not doubt...well...in complete honesty I do often have some doubt.
Have you ever seen the movie "The Polar Express"? Well, I am learning that I'm "the doubter".
Awesome.
Believe me...I can relate to Thomas (a.k.a. DOUBTING Thomas).
Now, let me explain. I don't doubt God. I don't doubt that He gives generously to all of His children. I don't doubt that He is omniscient, omnipotent, or omnipresent. I don't doubt that He can do anything and everything that He wants and that He can use anyone or anything that He wants to, when He wants to.
What I DO doubt...is myself. I guess this study of the book of James is revealing to me that I don't really have a firm grasp of my identity in Jesus Christ. I thought I did. I am also reading "Absolute Surrender" and recently read "Intimacy with the Almighty". Both have reinforced that I regularly fail to claim the full victory and power that God has given me through Jesus Christ to do His work. Sure, I have been claiming some of the victory and some of the power; I just haven't been claiming all that He's offering. God can use my prayers, offered in faith, to bring healing. God will give me His wisdom when I believe Him for it and I search Him and His word for it. God will rein in my tongue if I am willing to surrender it to Him. God will completely consume my heart if I surrender it fully to Him.
I pray this year will be revolutionary in my life. I pray that God will change me to be more like Him. I must decrease and He must increase.
Oh, my. I have so much to learn. I will always have more to learn. I pray God will never quench my thirst to learn more of Him and I pray for His empowerment to absorb it all.
Showing posts with label james. Show all posts
Showing posts with label james. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Monday, March 26, 2012
James Memorization Accountability
If you remember, I wrote about how my hubby and I are trying to memorize the entire book of James (Bible) over here. Well, as a follow-up, below I am going to type out, FROM MEMORY, chapter one. This week we are beginning our work on chapter two. In advance, I am asking you to forgive my poor punctuation and any jumbled up words. Midway through the chapter I switched versions of the NIV to memorize from (yes, there are different versions of the NIV...and the one I began memorizing from changed after I started). So here I go:
James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes scattered among the nations: Greetings.
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. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. 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.
But when you ask you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.
The brother in humble circumstances ought to take pride in his high position. But the one who is rich should take pride in his low position because he will pass away like a wild flower. For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant; its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way, the rich will fade away even while they go about their business. 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.
When tempted no one should say, "God is tempting me." For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone. But when tempted, each person is dragged away by their own evil desires and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is full grown, gives birth to death. Do not be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.
My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not bring about the righteousness that God so desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word and does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it--he will be blessed in what he does.
If anyone considers himself to be religious but does not keep a tight rein on his tongue deceives himself, and his religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
End.
Let's see...how did I do? Well, I definitely missed / changed some punctuation and there are a few places where I used a couple different words (like bring about instead of produce). The one verse I still managed to get the gist of but really jumbled up is highlighted now. All-in-all, not too bad...definitely not perfect. It's a work in progress by the empowering of the Holy Spirit. Praise to God, alone!
Let's bring on chapter two!
James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes scattered among the nations: Greetings.
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. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. 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.
But when you ask you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.
The brother in humble circumstances ought to take pride in his high position. But the one who is rich should take pride in his low position because he will pass away like a wild flower. For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant; its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way, the rich will fade away even while they go about their business. 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.
When tempted no one should say, "God is tempting me." For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone. But when tempted, each person is dragged away by their own evil desires and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is full grown, gives birth to death. Do not be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.
My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not bring about the righteousness that God so desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word and does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it--he will be blessed in what he does.
If anyone considers himself to be religious but does not keep a tight rein on his tongue deceives himself, and his religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
End.
Let's see...how did I do? Well, I definitely missed / changed some punctuation and there are a few places where I used a couple different words (like bring about instead of produce). The one verse I still managed to get the gist of but really jumbled up is highlighted now. All-in-all, not too bad...definitely not perfect. It's a work in progress by the empowering of the Holy Spirit. Praise to God, alone!
Let's bring on chapter two!
Monday, February 13, 2012
Monday Miscellany - The James Challenge
I'm not a big fan of new year's resolutions. I find they usually don't last and are too vague to really be put in to action. Rather than write out my reasoning, just read this succinct (and highly motivating) post by Money Saving Mom.
I'm not going to post my entire list of goals here, but I want to share one: The James Challenge.
My hubby and I want to be much more intentional about memorizing scripture. Inductive bible study requires looking at scripture in context, so we want to apply that to scripture memorization as well. I admit, I got the idea from the aforementioned post on MSM where she lists that she wants to memorize the entire book of Colossians. Instead of Colossians, Seth and I prayed about it and decided we wanted to memorize the book of James together. It seems to be very relevant to our lives and has so much wisdom packed in to its five chapters. It consists of 108 verses and we are memorizing small chunks every week and are giving ourselves one week (at the close of each chapter) to review and correct our memorization up to that point.
I also admit that I've been incredibly lax in my memorization of scripture, settling for getting the gist of the verses, not knowing where they're located without my Bible handy, and simply putting it off. I have no problem memorizing song lyrics or scripts when they're fun...so why haven't I taken the time to really memorize God's Word?
To be honest, I have no excuse. I've purely been apathetic. O Lord, forgive me!
So I'm setting out to change that...with the Lord's help.
Seth and I are now in our fifth week of memorization. We have memorized James 1:1-10 and are currently working on verses 11-12. I truly believe it is the grace of God and His Holy Spirit that is helping us inscribe these words upon our hearts.
Please know that I'm not posting about this for my own glory. My intent is to encourage and motivate other believers to heed the command to meditate upon the Word and to write it upon your hearts. It really does make a difference in your walk with the Lord. He will call scriptures to mind when you need them. As you meditate on scripture, He will reveal new insights into them. It's actually very humbling.
Definitely keep me accountable. I covet your prayers as we work to fix these verses permanently on our hearts.
James 1:1-10:
1:1 James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes scattered among the nations: Greetings.
1:2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds,
1:3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.
1:4 Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
1:5 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.
1:6 But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.
1:7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.
1:8 Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.
1:9 The brother in humble circumstances ought to take pride in his high position.
1:10 But the one who is rich should take pride in his low position, because he will pass away like a wild flower.
(NIV, updated version)
I'm not going to post my entire list of goals here, but I want to share one: The James Challenge.
My hubby and I want to be much more intentional about memorizing scripture. Inductive bible study requires looking at scripture in context, so we want to apply that to scripture memorization as well. I admit, I got the idea from the aforementioned post on MSM where she lists that she wants to memorize the entire book of Colossians. Instead of Colossians, Seth and I prayed about it and decided we wanted to memorize the book of James together. It seems to be very relevant to our lives and has so much wisdom packed in to its five chapters. It consists of 108 verses and we are memorizing small chunks every week and are giving ourselves one week (at the close of each chapter) to review and correct our memorization up to that point.
I also admit that I've been incredibly lax in my memorization of scripture, settling for getting the gist of the verses, not knowing where they're located without my Bible handy, and simply putting it off. I have no problem memorizing song lyrics or scripts when they're fun...so why haven't I taken the time to really memorize God's Word?
To be honest, I have no excuse. I've purely been apathetic. O Lord, forgive me!
So I'm setting out to change that...with the Lord's help.
Seth and I are now in our fifth week of memorization. We have memorized James 1:1-10 and are currently working on verses 11-12. I truly believe it is the grace of God and His Holy Spirit that is helping us inscribe these words upon our hearts.
Please know that I'm not posting about this for my own glory. My intent is to encourage and motivate other believers to heed the command to meditate upon the Word and to write it upon your hearts. It really does make a difference in your walk with the Lord. He will call scriptures to mind when you need them. As you meditate on scripture, He will reveal new insights into them. It's actually very humbling.
Definitely keep me accountable. I covet your prayers as we work to fix these verses permanently on our hearts.
James 1:1-10:
1:1 James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes scattered among the nations: Greetings.
1:2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds,
1:3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.
1:4 Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
1:5 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.
1:6 But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.
1:7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.
1:8 Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.
1:9 The brother in humble circumstances ought to take pride in his high position.
1:10 But the one who is rich should take pride in his low position, because he will pass away like a wild flower.
(NIV, updated version)
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