Category: Daily Devotionals

THE BEST LAID PLANS

You boast in your arrogance, all such boasting is evil.  James 4:16

            I’d love to have a count of how many planning meetings happen on Monday mornings; both in business and in ministry.  Those in leadership have, most likely, invested some critical thinking time on issues of strategy and implementation of their ideas.  How much of what will be proposed today has been conceived through prayer?  Little I suspect.  Sadly, that may also be the case when it comes to those who will meet together on behalf of their respective ministries.

            Anytime I make plans for the future and feel confident of my success without any sense of dependence on God, James is clear that I am living dangerously.  My independence is of the kingdom of darkness.  Who am I that I would think I have enough consummate wisdom in and of myself to write my future?  Am I naive enough to believe that my own skillfully formed plans aren’t capable of failing?   If so, then I am out of touch with the numberless casualties that may defeat my schemes. Continue reading “The Best Laid Plans” →

WHEN I REWRITE GOD’S LAW

Do not speak against one another, brethren.  He who speaks against a brother, or judges his brother, speaks against the law, and judges the law, but if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law, but a judge of it.  James 4:11

            To speak against a brother is to slander, to become a talebearer that diminishes his character in the public eye, to destroy his reputation through false stories and to take his weakness and magnify it till it’s grossly disproportionate.

James says that when I use my tongue to rip another person to shreds in public, I am rejecting God’s law and setting up my own law in its place.  I pronounce judgment and then set up others to do the same when God says He is the Father who should deal with His children in all aspects of their lives.  We don’t sit in His seat.

It’s a dangerous thing to do what God has prohibited.  I may believe that speaking against my brother is a small infraction.  I may rationalize that I’ve chosen to keep the rest of the law but only erred on this one point.   Continue reading “When I Re-write God’s Laws” →

HUMBLE YOURSELF!

Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord and He will lift you up.  James 4:10

            What would you do if someone thought you to be proud, then told you to ~  ‘Humble yourself!’  Let me share with you what I used to think it meant.  After feeling a profound sense of shame, I would set out to cast the pride out of my nature through self-condemning messages.  I would rehearse my past experiences with others whom I experienced as proud and ask myself if I really wanted to be like them.  The exercise would turn into a horizontal comparison game.

            At that point, would I be humble?  Absolutely not.  I would have adopted a language of humility and a posture of meekness.  Self-effort and corrective self-talk does not produce anything that results in Christlikeness.    Continue reading “Humble Yourself!” →

AM I THE RIGHT AUDIENCE?

Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy into gloom.  James 4:9

            As a young child, I lived nervous and quiet most of the time.  In school, I was usually the one sitting with her hands folded at her desk.  If the majority of the class was misbehaving, I never had the courage to take part.  (Not that I wasn’t thinking about it, mind you!)  So when the teacher would lose her temper and yell at the whole class, I would assume she was also talking to me.  I would tremble in my seat and think, “I thought I was being good but I must not be wrong.  Look at her red face.”

‘Discerning the audience’ is still a problem for many who read the scriptures.  Those who are already walking in obedience often internalize God’s words of judgment.  Their overly sensitive guilt trigger causes them to soak in the wrath of God Continue reading “Am I The Right Audience?” →

CONDITIONS FOR A GREATER GRACE

But He gives a greater grace.  Therefore it says, “God is opposed to the proud but gives grace to the humble.”  James 4:6

            God is not just opposed to the idea of pride, but more specifically, to the proud person.  Pride is more than a blatant arrogance; the kind we associate with a person who is prideful; he loves attention, and is usually addicted to approval and respect.  Pride can be disguised in low self-esteem as well.  How?  I place my low opinion of myself above God’s opinion of me – in Christ.  He says I am cherished and miraculously created.  I say I am despised and nothing but a loser.  When I declare His truth null and void and cling to my own worthlessness, is this not pride as well?

For the child of God though, we live on a hunt for pride and rebellion and embrace a life of confession.  Each of us knows that God’s delight in us is a gift, not something that we have earned.  For the humble, God promises an even greater grace.  What is that?  Continue reading “Conditions For A Greater Grace” →

MEETING ME HALFWAY

Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.  James 4:8

            I grew up in a two-story Victorian house set high atop a hill in the Taconic mountains of upstate New York.  Just across the dirt road and down over a steep bank lived a Japanese-American family.  They had seven daughters and the oldest was my best friend.  Her name was Julie.  After school each day, I would run to the fence, look down into her yard and yell, “Meet me by the tree!”  The tree was really a tree stump that was exactly half way down the hill for me, and half way up the hill for her.  We would meet there with after-school snacks in tow.  Eager to meet and talk away an hour or two, I can still see her running toward me.  The sight is precious in my memory.

            This ‘running to meet each other’ is the context of today’s scripture.  God wants me to know that as I run toward Him, He will more than match my enthusiasm by running toward me in return.  A quickened pace.  Excitement in His eyes.  Delightful expectation of fellowship in His heart.

            For any who has yearned for a certain relationship, only to have the desire be terribly one-sided, this is a promise to embrace wholeheartedly.   Continue reading “Meeting Me Halfway” →

WISDOM AND GENTLENESS

Who among you is wise and understanding?  Let him show by his good behavior his deeds in the gentleness of wisdom.  James 3:13

            Perhaps you’ve noticed that I speak often of a know-it-all.  I know that I do that.  Having come from a background of legalism, and having been wounded in an atmosphere of spiritual arrogance, I am sensitive to this subject.  Great scholars can lack the humility born of experiencing Christ and the grace He offers for sin.

A pastor whom I admire just returned from a mission’s trip to Africa and he made a comment this week.  “Never trust a leader without a limp.”  That’s it, isn’t it?  There are those who think they become great through the intellectual pursuit of a Master of Divinity degree.  That is not true.  Greatness starts with self-awareness and the familiarity with one’s own brokenness.  When I know the pathology of my own wounds and have explored them in the company of the Holy Spirit, I cannot be anything but humble. Continue reading “Wisdom and Gentleness” →

UNCHANGING GOODNESS

Every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation, nor shadow of turning.  James 1:17

            God’s character is good and His goodness is always present.  When James speaks of ‘variation and shadow of turning’, he is using a phrase in astronomy called parallax, when the earth rotates on its axis every 24 hours.  When it does, we experience the shifting of light upon the earth.  The sun is obscured by clouds, by seasons, and the nighttime comes to one part of the world while another region enjoys the daylight.  One part of the earth will know nighttime and shadows.

But God never shifts and changes.  He is everywhere at once and we can depend on His goodness being accessible.  So, why does God seem more near at certain times, more distant at others?  The older I get, I understand that it has to do entirely with me.  My flesh causes the illusion of His distance.  My body suffers mortality; illness, depression, fatigue and stress.  Each brings a veil of shadows.  With the obstruction of His view, I can fall into disbelief.  “Where have you gone, Lord?  Don’t you hear?  Don’t you see?  Don’t you care?”  Continue reading “Unchanging Goodness” →

A THREAD TO A ROPE

Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.  James 1:15

            A well-loved rabbi is usually known for his stories, for his wisdom, as evidenced by this metaphor he often used to teach today’s scripture.

            He would tell you that when we listen to the seductive voices of our own souls, we perceive sin as the thread of a spider’s web.  We believe that if we give in, the consequences won’t be that serious.  After all, a thread is thin and easily broken.  In reality, when sin is acted upon, the spider’s thread mutates into a thick braided rope.  The illusion of the thread though ~ trips us up every time.

            I need to believe God about lust giving way to sin, and then sin bringing about death. God hates sin, not only because He is holy, but also because of what it does to His children.   Continue reading “A Thread To A Rope” →

EQUIPPED, NOT INADEQUATE

But let the brother of humble circumstances glory in his high position.  James 1:9

            Are you plagued with nagging self-doubt?  You review your humble beginnings, your lack of experience, and/or your failures and before long, you lose your nerve for the calling of God on your life.  Add to that the fact that any holy calling is God-sized, not human-sized, and you have the makings of a private panic attack.  No wonder you often slip into what others expect of you.  Their model serves as a make-shift womb.  Few ever push their way out into the world to discover what God has dreamed for them.

            James speaks of how we are to perceive ourselves if, by worldly perception, we are void of impressive credentials.  When we are little, we are big in Christ.  When weak, powerful in God’s might.  When foolish, wise in the Spirit.

            What if we believe we are disqualified by past failures?  Continue reading “Equipped, Not Inadequate” →