1 – “servant” – It is always good for us to be reminded that we are to be servants. Make me a servant, humble and meek… Luke 15:18-19 / John 13:3-5. May we always be servants to Christ and His body. May we serve our family, our church and our brothers and sisters in God. In our homes, our schools, our workplaces… Matthew 25:13-27
2 – “all joy” – When troubles come, when my heart is broken, when the bills are high, when relationships are painful, when sickness comes, when life seems so dark and hard… Be joyful??!! YES!! If we read this just quickly and do not stop to consider the truth of this verse we will miss a lovely comfort and precious encouragement. It seems crazy but the bible says it and so I believe it. We can have all joy in our trials! We can rejoice! 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 – “when” not if! / 1 Peter 4:12-13 – “rejoice” / Hebrews 12:2 – “joy set before”
3 – “trying of your faith” – Our faith will be tested! It is important to remember what faith is. Faith is not simply to believe the truth. Faith lives the truth! James 2:14-26 / Hebrews 11:1,6-16 Faith is obedience to the word of God. To believe and to act – This verse then means that our obedience will be tested, our loyalty, our hearts, our love… to work patience. 1 Peter 4:12-13 / Job 23:87-10 / Deuteronomy 8:1-20
– “patience” – Each trial can seem so different and it can seem that God is teaching us so many things but simply there is just one thing that He wants to work in us… Patience. – It takes more than one trial to learn patience. If we truly seek to be obedient , we learn to be patient through the trials and we can rejoice that God is working, leading and providing in everything that comes. – What a blessed and precious comfort to know that all the heartache and worries we have now; the loneliness, the struggles, the battles… we can have joy in it because God is teaching us patience.
4 – “wanting nothing” – A patience that rests a heart in God. A patience that lets the peace of God rule. A patience that waits upon the Lord. Patience is peaceful.
Psalm 23 / Colossians 3:14-15 / Isaiah 40:31
– A patience that looks at my life with its storms and battles, that looks at my loneliness, failings, struggles at work… and can trust God, be content in His provision and rejoice in Him and His love! Philippians 4:4-13
5 – “wisdom” – Proverbs 9:10 – Wisdom only comes from God! As we face each trial with a holy fear, love and reverence for our God, learning to trust Him more, we learn through Him this wisdom in patience. The wisdom to glean from past experience (ours and other peoples), the wisdom to heed the Holy Spirit’s leading, to learn His still small voice, the wisdom to see beyond our circumstance to the joy that is set before us. The wisdom in/of rejoicing. Proverbs 4:5-9
6 – “faith” – We must have the belief and trust that God will keep His word but also the obedient, yielding faith that will “diligently seek Him” Hebrews 11:6
7-8 – “all” – A man/woman who is not certain with their heart will be unstable with their judgements, unstable with their desires and unstable with their conscience. A constant state of flux, unsure, confused, not knowing the truth. Matthew 6:22-24 / Revelation 3:15-16 / Ephesians 4:1-15
12 – “endureth” / “love” – To endure temptation is to prove HIs/your love. To resist temptation is to show and prove loyalty, devotion, integrity, singleness of heart and desire… Genesis 2:24 says to “cleave” – to leave all others, all else! Leave it! Resist it! Endure the temptation, endure the desire. Acknowledge it, feel it, flee it! But cleave to Christ! Temptation tests our hearts. It is a test from ourselves, a test of our will. This will show if we are “double-minded” or not. Love is single minded! 1 Corinthians 13 – This is what love is so these are the areas we will be tested in.
– Do we love Him? Make it personal… Do I love Him? Truly we need a revelation of what love really is! Can I honestly say I love Jesus? Above all else? Love – The willing and complete denial of self for the good of another.
– We really must keep this reward in mind. How much easier is temptation when we fear God and remember this awesome reward! The reward is life! Abundant life, eternal life! The reward is Jesus! Job 23:8-10 / Hebrews 12:1-4 / Romans 8:18
13-14 – “His own lust (desires)” – Temptation comes from our own lusts and desires. These desires can start as good, healthy, Godly desires but even these can lead to lust! A desire to please our flesh. When these desires cause us to seek our own pleasure above God’s then lust has conceived! When we allow our will, our flesh to impregnate and give way to our desires… Then lust has conceived and there can only be one fruit. How diligent and careful we must be to protect our hearts; to not be “drawn away”. Drawn away from God, drawn away from “the way”. John 14:6 – Drawn away to selfishness, pride, shame, weakness and bad fruit. – God will not use sin to test us. He will never cause us to stumble – truly we must be careful what we desire, we must guard our hearts! Deuteronomy 4:9 / Proverbs 4:23 / Philippians 4:8 – Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full on His wonderful face, and the things of the earth, will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace… Lay all desires upon the altar and let Jesus guide our hearts. Galations 6:7-9
15 – If we are honest we can confess that we’ve proved the truth of this verse. Truly the result of our will given over to lust is sin. The fruit is sin. But it doesn’t stop there! – Oh Lord Jesus may we ever be mindful of the terrible consequences of sin! Death! Death to our joy, death to our love, death to our humility, our unity and our communion with Jesus Christ. Psalm 19:12-13 / Matthew 6:13
16-18 – “good gift” / “perfect gift” – We desire gifts for ourselves, we desire “good” things… However, every “good” and “perfect” comes from our loving heavenly father. Colossians 3:1-2 / Matthew 6:19-21,33 / Psalm 27:4 / Psalm 42:1-2
– If we would just trust our wonderful shepherd and seek Him, we would be blessed with such wonderful and joy giving gifts! How precious are His blessings. Truly He knows our needs.
– If we would truly set our affection on things above and sought the kingdom of God we would have less temptation and more strength to withstand it! Galations 5:16
19-20 – “swift to hear, slow to speak” – I’m sure we know the benefit and blessing of a listening ear, the patience that we learn from verses 2-4 will keep us from much trouble. May we learn to control our temper. My anger, my impatience and my frustration will not “work” the mercy and compassion of a God who is love. – Proverbs 15:1-2 / Proverbs 17:27-28
21-22 – “lay apart”/ “receive with meekness” / “engrafted word” – Just as a bride is given to one husband and leaves all other men for her one groom, so we must leave all of this worlds sin and shame and choose Christ and His truth. Jesus wants our hearts to be singular for Him! If we love Him, if we really love Him then it will be not burden or problem to leave everything that we might know Him and please Him. Philippians 3:10 / John 14:21 / Romans 13:12 / Ephesians 4:22 / Colossians 3:8-10 – And may the Holy Spirit show us plainly the filthiness and naughtiness of sin. In these days we seem to be desensitized to sin and we do not shun evil as Job did.
– “receive” – Thank Jesus that He does not call us to leave everything so that we just have nothing. He does not ask us to die to ourselves just so that we are dead! He offers us His word! It is good to remember that it must be received! We cannot have both the “naughtiness” and the word. We are offered a word to save us, to keep us… A living word! Hebrews 4:12 / John 6:68 / John 1:14 / 1 John 1:1-2 / Psalm 119:105
– “engrafted word” – It is His word set upon our hearts. It is His still small voice leading us, guiding us and teaching us. Jeremiah 31:33 / 2 Corinthians 3:3
– “doers” – It is not enough to know the word. Just as it is not enough to merely believe. James 2:19 We must walk in humility and obedience to the word. This can posssibly sound hard, heavy, complicated, too much to take in… but really all this is just an expression of love. If we love Jesus and His word we will truly want to obey it and please Him and He will then give us the strength and wisdom that we need to obey it.
21-25 – “and continueth” – The man or woman who reads the word of God and sees the reflection of themselves, dirty, unworthy, forgiven, restored… And lives their life with this word in their heart remembering their lowly estate and the glory of God and walks in obedience, serving Jesus and serving His body… This person shall see a blessing for their obedience. – Too many people and too often read God’s word with pride and see no application to our own hearts. May we be ever mindful of our dependency on Jesus, our need for His forgiveness, cleansing and grace. John 8:31-32
26-27 – “bridleth not his tongue” – James brings a man’s testimony down to one thing, his tongue! What a fearsome, convicting thought. Oh Lord have mercy and please guide my tongue. Oh Holy spirit please teach me to bridle my tongue! Matthew 12:34-37 – May my heart be soft, tender and compassionate. A heart of Christ’s love do that my tongue may be the same!
– “pure religion” / “unspotted” – So let us put into practice what this word teaches us. If we kept in mind the character of Jesus, how He was so tender, loving, serving, compassionate, selfless… we might live our lives more like Him! 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 This is love! This is pure religion!
Learning With Lovell 