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Good Afternoon Meadowbrooke,

There is a verse in the Bible that I was reminded of while working on my sermon on James 3:13-18 for Sunday, and that verse is Deuteronomy 30:6.  Consider what this verses says: “Moreover, the Yahweh your God will circumcise your heart and the hearts of your descendants, to love the Yahweh your God with all your heart and all your soul, so that you may live.”  The Hebrew word for “live” is a word that not only means life, but “to thrive.”  Love Yahweh with your whole being!  Why?  So that you can thrive!

 

So how do I love my God?  Your love for Him is expressed in your living for Him.  Do you see the connection of Deuteronomy 30:6 with what we have been discovering in James?  This is why James was able to write, “Faith, if it has no works, is dead.” (James 2:17).  Not only is faith without works dead, but it is useless (v. 20).  Why, because a person who has been born again is alive... with Christ (Eph. 2:4)!  Therefore, if you are alive with Christ, so is your faith.  If your faith is alive, then it has a heartbeat that can be felt and experienced by those around you.  

 

In James 3:13-18, we are told about two types of wisdom.  The first type of wisdom is earthly, and it does not flow out of the kind of faith that is alive with Christ; the second type of wisdom is from above, it is the kind that flows out of a life that is united to Jesus.  It is the wisdom from above that one experiences the kind of thriving Deuteronomy 30:6 promises: The kind of wisdom that is “first pure, then peace-loving, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, free of hypocrisy” (v. 17).  Is this not the kind of living we all want to experience?  

 

I look forward to opening our Bibles together for the purpose of God’s word in James 3:13-18 this Sunday! 

 

Grace,

Pastor Keith