What Did James Know That Will Help Us [James chapter 1 verse 16-18]

What did James know that will help us?

   You and I, we, are in the midst of the most massive delusion making reality shifting technologies ever in the history of man.  Let's try to think of it this way, Bill Gates, a name you recognize as one of the worlds wealthiest men, founder of Microsoft one of the worlds largest and most prestigious computer companies; put it in these terms, "Not since the Gutenberg printing press has a revolutionary upgrade in technology had such a powerful effect as the computer."  [Business at the Speed of Thought] Gates wrote that theorem in his landmark work two decades back! 
    In those days we discussed the potential to do quantum computing, today, it happens.  In those days we discussed virtual reality, today we have online virtual communities where people choose their identity and interact.  While it is still less than totally real, it's only about two years away until the average person will be able to don a mask and go into a world unlike anything they've ever experienced before.  Just as in my doctoral thesis a decade back the simple concept of Christianity keeping up with social media, was postulated as being something the church would be slow to adjust to- so in this time did James see a clear threat to the lives of his flocks faith!  They were being deceived about the god's, when they knew the one true God, just as we are now being deceived about God who is being replaced in our minds by a technology that does miracles.  James saw it and was inspired to write about it thousands of years ago because nothing, absolutely nothing is as important to following Christ as faith!  He wrote:

16Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. 

17Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. 

18In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we would be a kind of first fruits among His creatures.

Were people in the times James wrote of different than we are today, fundamentally, no.  The same basic human needs existed then as exist today, food, shelter, continuing the family, work and productive use of ones time, all were the same issues then as today.  They were primarily agricultural folk, we aren't.  They had precious few copies of scripture of any kind, the gathering of the Jewish worshipers, men leading, with the families able to sit around the outside the central place of opening the scrolls, was in " Hebrew: בית כנסת‬ bet kenesset, 'house of assembly' or בית תפילה‬ bet tefila, "house of prayer", [Wiki-Synagogue, 2018] The scrolls were kept and cherished, few parchments of any letters existed, it is possible that this was a circular letter shared among the Christians now known as "The Way."  And to those people James said, "Don't be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters."  Because we know the word of God is eternal, such is being said also to you today, and for your children in the future coming, if Christ tarries His return, they will read, don't be deceived.  It is not a question therefore that we are, deceived, it is in the form of a requested urgent strong recommendation, don't be.

Time marches forward, from the present, with memories of the past.  That past, however strongly the physicists among us would like you to believe, doesn't exist, does.  It exists in the impact it has upon your present thinking.  To deny that is to deny the essence of what it means to realize we are sinners, and we are, sinners.  "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.."  [1 John 1:8] 

We are in a perpetual walk with a Lord who is God, Jesus is our Lord, but make no mistake about it. without His forgiving blood atonement, you and I are doomed to an eternity in hell.  We don't like to discuss it, but that's the truth, Jesus did shed his blood that through forgiveness of our sins we might be saved from God the Father who cannot look upon sin- therefore in His Holy Presence sin vanishes, it can't exist- but under the blood sacrifice of Jesus our sins are forgiven.  It is the most complicated yet profoundly simple aspect of the born from above human being.  So simple that many miss it, Paul said that would be the case- and that's unfortunate because it is so simple to ask Christ to forgive you of your sins- and yet, if you don't believe that you're capable of "missing the mark," if you never do wrong, if you've never failed in any way shape or form, well shucks, what need of Jesus have you?  "Every Good and perfect gift..."

Now James gets deep - "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."  Imagine that the universe(s) and all created everything belongs and is through God- no, you can't?  Don't feel bad, neither can I, neither can any human, ever- except one- Jesus who said, "I am the way, the truth and the life no man can come unto the Father save by me." [vv. John 14:5]  James now takes us to the place prepared for our kneeling- "that we might be a kind of first fruits of all he created."  OK lets not miss those two little connecting items, OF ALL.