James Chapter 1 verse 6-8

What did James know that will help us?

Self identifying, it's a way of saying what you are that is systematically accepted by those institutions which have chosen to honor such a declaration.  It is usually about gender, although it can be about other things; these days it is mostly about gender choice, and it is showing up on insurance forms, college admission sheets, used car rentals (hard to see that one, isn't it?) and many other forms of data

where what you identify yourself as makes, apparently, a difference?  Is there a problem with this?  In the social media age, is that problem even more rarefied?  One of my associates calls himself a homosexual Christian, that's a form of self identification; one almost has to shudder at what that form of self identification would have gained a person standing at the base of Mt. Horeb?

We're going to take a few discussion points into this narrative as a commentary, and try to make relevant a document written a couple thousand years ago to a tortured and dying few; for those of us who live in this time.  It's not an easy task, the dissimilarities for outweigh the common elements of our lives, and yet, the wisdom still seems appropriate, something that is generally and genuinely no small bone of contention to the detractors from the truth you read today. 

 "6 But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, 8 being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways."

What James discusses in the verse 6 about asking in faith is no small matter.  Faith is a nearly impossible subject in this scientific reasoning time.  The tendency is to preclude faith as a genuine element to life, and yet we who believe we have faith, choose to believe we live by it.  We also choose to believe that such lives matter and are relevant in a landscape which constantly strives to prove that no individual is distinctly more important than their particular momentary power.  Such outlooks are seen in the lens of history as being very one sided and extremely myopic, almost microscopic to an argument needing macroscopic paradigms (did that for my science buddies).

What is even harder to imagine is having no doubt in an age where doubt and lack of trust are the clarion call.  We live in a culture where trust and believing are abnormal, and where doubting and checking to verify if it is so, is the norm.  Now only a foolish person would never verify what it important, but to constantly believe that nothing is true, that's a different matter.

NOW let's get to the clincher- why do you or why does a person have to ask in faith without doubting?  If you've never doubted, one has to wonder, how can that be?  In my case God has never let me down, He does show me that He is real in ways that can't be anything but Him, and yet, if a person is honest, there is going to come a moment or moments even, when the enemy will lie into your heart, so is that what James is saying?  Don't think so...but...we're deep enough...please leave any comments or concerns, that's why we do what we do, about James knowing how to help us...

James chapter 1 -vv. focal 5-8

What did James know that will help us?

"BOOM" Then silence, inside the silence is a note, a humming?  If you read that and had no idea what it was describing, you've never had a gun go off close to your ears without ear plugs or those headphone shooting protectors.  That tone means your ear is now out of commission, that lasts for a

while, during that moment, you don't hear other sounds.  Once while training to use forty five caliber weapons in the military the trainer informed us that we were going to experience this, so that we'd know what it was like when we drew our weapon without protection, and wouldn't freak out in a fire fight.  We did, and that sound is a terrifying one.  Being terrified, being scared to the point that your mind has a certain loss of control, that there is no reference to model your behavior on, that you go out of your mind, so to say, with terror- the moment before the sword strikes, the moments after an explosion, the moments after a gunman goes into a church and starts shooting- those moments of terror are what protectors have to train for.  Keep that in mind and read these next verses of James:

   "5 But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, 

who gives to all generously and without reproach, 

and it will be given to him. 

6 But he must ask in faith without any doubting,

for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, 

driven and tossed by the wind. 

7 For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, 

8 being a double-minded man, unstable in all his way

We're going to go a little deeper into these verses in pursuant commentary moments, but here at that outset let me gently suggest to you, that when you see a friend, someone you care about, done dirty, it gets to you in a place that few things can.  That indignant feeling of "How can this happen," is multiplied many times over when it is a family member.  So are we as Christian's a family?  James was watching and experiencing the killing of his family members to become "Roman candles."  James and his fellow family members watched as Christian's were used for sport.  I'm pretty certain that's going to

prove out as we become more historically correct in understanding this incredible representative of God, but in the meantime, consider that above all of that, because of who Nero was, because of who the powerful government was, Rome, and the laws that were now being bent to allow killing in the name of the state, and to please Caesar, who was now in their minds, God, those who led "The way," were acutely aware that the terror was beyond anyone's ability to explain, but needed to be confronted, there had to be spelled out a way to deal with it, and what would you choose as your source to draw from, were that the case for you?

If your enemy is the best liar of all history- the one who excuses every conceivably evil action that we are capable of, and then, turns upon the one who has done such with his accusatory "You shouldn't

have done that, that's a sin, Jesus won't allow such..."  Trying his hardest to drive a wedge into your relationship of faith to and about Christ- If that is your enemy, how in this time can you take on that fight?  The answer is, you can't, nobody human is capable of such, who is (?)- God.

Here is where James begins to bring such clarity to a centuries old problem for those who love truth, hate lies, and want to make things better- evil, those who practice it, relish it, and love the power it brings to their lie based lives, those ones, they can't stand God, can't stand God's people, and hate wisdom brought into the realm by God through his family.  Don't ever mistake that God doesn't hear your heart when it cries over a friend done wrong- those who do such - 

will come to know that.