"If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, "Love your neighbour as yourself," you are doing right.   But if you show favouritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers.  For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.  For he who said, "Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not murder."  If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker.  Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful.  Mercy triumphs over judgment."

                                                                                                                                                James 2:8-13

This past weekend I had the privilege of preaching at the Anniversary service of a Church that I once served.  It was both a joyful and a humbling experience for me.  For eleven years I had been immersed in ministry with the people of that Church.  To walk back into that sanctuary after sixteen and a half years brought back to me a flood of memories.  For the most part these memories were joyful.  It is strange how we often fail to notice the joyfulness of our experience when we are immersed in ministry.   As I stood in that Church and was reunited with people who I had served the Lord with the shear joyfulness of our time there came flooding back to me.  To be sure there were heartaches there; there were conflicts, as there always are in the Lord's service, and disappointments.  We grieved the passing of key people, even knowing that they had gone on to be with their Lord.  The primary tone of that ministry was one of great joy.  We laughed together, praised God together, witnessed together, prayed and cried together during those years.  After eleven years it was apparent that the Lord had a different path for them and us, and so we parted.  Now looking back on our time together I can see that it was one of great joy.  I am rejoicing that the Lord led my family to that place for a few years.  I am also rejoicing that after those eleven years were completed the Lord had another wonderful and joyful place for us to serve Him.

I wrote that this past weekend was a humbling one as well.  To go back to a place where I have served and to see the changes that has taken place.  Our friends have change and aged, as have we.  Many are no longer here they have gone to be with the Lord.  One friend talked about her witness, and I was reminded of how for eleven years I reminded these wonderful people that "This is the day of salvation."  What was brought forcefully home to me this weekend was that we must never let an opportunity slip by to share the Gospel that sets us free with those that the Lord has brought into our lives.  Each of us is moving one day closer each day to the Day of Judgment.  As one preacher once exclaimed, "only what's done in Christ will last." 

I believe that this is part of the burden that James felt as he wrote his letter.  To bring his readers, including you and me to the point of understanding that obedience in Christ to the commands of God which are contained in Scripture is our calling and our burden.  To stand and look back upon years of service and ask ourselves whether we have been faithful to this calling is indeed a humbling experience.  This is how I felt this past weekend as I was given another opportunity to preach the precious Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ to some old friends.  I pray that the Lord will take my poor words and use them for His glory.

                "In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day He was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles He had chosen.  After His suffering, He showed Himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that He was alive.  He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the Kingdom of God.  On one occasion, while He was eating with them, He gave this command: "Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about.  For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.""

                                                                                                                                                Acts 1:1-5

                This week I have been preparing for a message that I will be preaching at First Baptist Church, Strathroy Ontario on the occasion of their 149^th Anniversary Service.  The theme of the message will be the fact that the Holy Spirit is a missionary Spirit.  The text will be the first eleven verses of the book of Acts.  In wrestling with these verses it has become apparent to me that Luke is here describing the nature of the New Testament Church as a missionary Church because it is living in fellowship with a missionary Lord.  Luke begins by linking the book of Acts with his first book, the Gospel of Luke.  In that first book Luke described all that Jesus began to do and to teach.  In Acts he continues with his theme describing for us the continuing work of the Lord Jesus Christ.  The Christian faith is in fact Christ.  Its history has been lived out in fellowship with His personal and active presence as the risen Lord living among us.  John Miller once called this the "King being living and active among us." 

                This week I came across a powerful illustration of this fact.  It is found in the life story of Elisabeth Elliot a missionary and an author who lived out a life of service that can only be explained by the personal presence of the living Lord.  Elliot's husband, along with four others, was murdered as he was seeking to share the love of Christ with the Auca Indians in Ecuador.  In the years that followed Elisabeth Elliot continued to work as a missionary and in the providence of God she was given an opportunity along with the sister of one of the other murdered missionaries, to live with the very tribe that had murdered their loved ones.  How do we explain how these young men could take the love of Christ to this dangerous tribe?  It is the work of the Holy Spirit bringing the personal presence of the living Christ into their lives.

                The Apostle Paul puts it this way in his description of the prayer he was praying for the Christians in Ephesus.  "For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom His whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name.  I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.  And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.  Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen." (Ephesians 3:14-21)

                Such missionary love can only be explained as the work of the Holy Spirit uniting us with our Lord Jesus Christ.  As we fellowship with our Lord we find ourselves led by His providence into the very places where we can share this love with those who desperately need it.  Where is the Lord leading you to share His missionary love?

                "Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom He promised those who love Him?  But you have insulted the poor.  Is it not the rich who are exploiting you?  Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court?  Are they not the ones who are slandering the noble name of Him to whom you belong?"

                                                                                                                                                                James 2:5-7

                As we continue to focus our attention upon the teaching that James gives us regarding the life that we are called to as those who have been called to real faith in the Lord Jesus Christ we are confronted with his convicting teaching on the true nature of faith and unbelief.  James centres that teaching upon a word that we find in the second chapter and the fourth verse.  It is a word translated as distinction, or better as doubt.  It describes an inner conflict between trust and distrust of God.  Such an attitude comes to know what God's will is yet it distrusts Him, so it goes off in its own way. 

                When Jonathan Edwards wrote his masterful Religious Affections he began with a clear definition of what real faith looked like.  He put it in these terms, "True faith mostly depends upon having the emotions of God, loving the things He loves."  As Edwards writes this it seems as if he has these verses in James 2 in mind.  Real faith finds itself loving the things that God loves, and hating those things which He hates.  This means that the believer finds themselves increasingly living in agreement with the Scriptures.  This must be especially true in the area of where we put our affections.  It is hard to see how a Christian can fail to love those things that our God loves in Christ.  It is equally hard to understand how we can love those things that God hates.  This is the essence of sin, in which we find ourselves being unbiblical in our affections.

                Jay Adams in his The Christian Counsellor's Commentary on Hebrews, James, 1 &2 Peter, and Jude calls us to Biblical living with the following advice to counsellors.    

                "Then James did one more thing - without which it would be very difficult to allow matters to stand as they are.  He showed the counselee how he may discern his own motives.  When James quotes Leviticus 19:18, he gives the biblical basis for examining motives.  He points out the biblical standard by which they must examine their motives.  He makes it clear that sin is determined, and one is convicted of sin, by the Bible.  It is utterly essential to make all determinations of sin by comparing the act (word, attitude) with the biblical injunction that relates to it.  You must never allow the counselee to turn to extrabiblical lists that others have drawn up and added to the Scriptural Standard.  This is the essence of pharisaical legalism. He must be warned against it.  In addition, you must deflect his thinking from experience, feeling, tradition or anything else other than explicit biblical teaching."

                James points us back to the teaching of Scripture in order to define the evidence we rely upon for assurance of faith.  A true believer loves sacrificially in the way that the Word of God calls us to do.  We love those things that God loves.  We determine the reality of our salvation by these Biblical means. There is no other way for us to live but in obedience to the Word of God.  Those who claim to love Jesus must live in obedience to His commandments.

                "Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God - this is your spiritual act of worship.  Don not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.  Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - His good, pleasing and perfect will.  For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith that God has given you.  Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others."

                                                                                                                                                Romans 12:1-5

                As I have been wrestling with the book of James and the Gospel of Mark in recent weeks' it has begun to occur to me that one of the themes that they share together is a cross-centred discipleship.  James calls believers to live with Christ-centred sacrificial love for one another.  Mark calls His disciples to follow Him to the cross where real sacrificial love will be demonstrated for this sin sick world.  These same Disciples were then to be called to follow His example in living lives of cross-centred service for this world in all its neediness.

                It should therefore come as no surprise that the Apostle Paul's discussion of the giftedness of the Roman Church should be rooted in imagery that calls believers to cross-centred living.  So often we want the gifts of the Spirit as a means of exerting power over others.  This is not the Jesus way.  His way is one of service to others.  So when Paul reflects upon the giftedness that we are given by the Holy Spirit he begins with a call to sacrifice.  We are to be living sacrifices.  In fact Paul tells us that this is what it means for us to truly Worship God.  Until we can follow Jesus to the cross, being immersed into His sufferings, we will never be able to share in His Glory.  We will therefore be of very little use in His Kingdom, and we will bear very little fruit for Him.  The reason for this failure on our part is because we will still be living for ourselves.  This is why the Corinthians were pursuing the more sensational gifts.  It was all about their own glory, rather than the glory of the God who had redeemed them.   They were unable as a result to build a Christ exalting Church.

                To the Romans Paul lays the foundation for real Christian fellowship in the call to the cross.  It is at that place of suffering that we find that our desire to conform ourselves to the pattern of this world is broken because we have died to it.  We have been given a new orientation in life.   This is to live with a mind transformed by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, so that we are now centred upon His will.  Now we live to glorify God by serving one another.  In this environment the gifts of the Holy Spirit, in fact the whole of the life of the Church operates as it should, and God is glorified.

                In Mark 10:32 we read that Jesus was going up to Jerusalem.  He was going up to worship.  His altar of worship was the cross of Calvary.  His Disciples were following Him, as must we.

                "My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don't show favouritism.  Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in.  If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, "Here is a good seat for you," but say to the poor man, "You stand there" or "Sit on the floor by my feet," have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?"

                                                                                                                                                                James 2:1-4

                I continue to be amazed at the use of words that I find in this letter of James.  As he develops his argument in a logical way James keeps reminding us of the central concepts which he has already established in our minds.  One of these concepts is that of real Biblical faith which leads us through the trials of the lives that we are living.  Each of us is tried and tested by the circumstances which we face in life.  God uses these experiences to mature us in Christ.  As we face the reality of our lives we are invited to ask God for wisdom, which James tells us God will give to us without wavering.  He will be committed to His purposes for us, and will give us all that we need.  We must ask without doubting.  The word that James uses here in James 1:5-6 is the same word which he also uses in chapter 2:4.  It is there translated as discriminated.  The basic meaning of the word is to doubt or to make a distinction.  Mussner defines the word this way, "an inner conflict between trust and distrust of God."  The reason why we make sinful distinctions regarding other people is owing to the fact that we are distrustful of God's plan and purpose for our lives.

                James is heading here towards an exposition and application of the Royal Law, "Thou shall love your neighbour as yourself."  The true believer in Christ is one in whom the fruit of such sacrificial love is being produced.  To bring us into the type of repentance that produces such fruit James must first bring us to the point where we are broken from our worldly approach to life.  So James confronts us with a Biblical parable much like that used by the Prophet Nathan with King David in 2 Samuel 12:1-7.

                "The LORD sent Nathan to David.  When he came to him, he said, "There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor.  The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought.  He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children.  It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms.  It was like a daughter to him.  Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him.  Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him."  David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, "As surely as the LORD lives, the man who did this deserves to die!  He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity."  Then Nathan said to David, "You are the man!"

                James follows the same Biblical principle as he illustrates one of the ways that we make distinctions among ourselves, all because we do not believe that God knows what He is talking about when He calls to "Love our neighbours as ourselves."  Over the next few weeks I want to explore what this means for us who are seeking to serve the Lord Jesus Christ in this 21^st century.

                "Jesus looked at him and loved him.  "One thing you lack," He said.  "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.  Then come, follow me."

                                                                                                                                                                                Mark 10:21

                An exploration of the words of Mark's Gospel can give us a deep insight into the characteristics of the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Michael Haykin, in a recent blog entry, at the Andrew Fuller Centre website, on the subject of C.H. Spurgeon's success and spirituality, gave a description of many of the intangible factors that led to his success, including a description of the great Baptist Preacher's voice as described by his biographer Mike Nicholls as, "one of the great speaking voices of his age, musical and combining compass, flexibility and power." [C.H. Spurgeon: The Pastor Evangelist (Didcot, Oxfordshire: Baptist Historical Society, 1992).  The intangible of Spurgeon's voice enhanced his success, but it was not the main reason for it.  Spurgeon attributed his success as a preacher to the grace of God.  It is there that true success is found.

                Mark uses vivid language in order to introduce us to the real Jesus.  Mark tells us of Jesus' gaze in the story of the rich young ruler.  Mark literally writes the Jesus looked upon the young man intently and loved Him.  The eyes of Jesus become the focus of the story.  He looks intently at the young man, He looked around intently at His disciples as the rich young man was leaving, and finally He again looked intently at His disciples when they expressed surprise at His teaching about wealth and the Kingdom of God.  Mark is telling us here that there was something penetrating in the gaze of the Lord Jesus Christ.  It literally cut deep into the hearts and souls of those that Jesus encountered.  We have all encountered people whose eyes were extremely expressive.  One glance from them was enough to stop us in our tracks.  It was once said of the Evangelist Billy Graham that his gaze was penetrating.  When he looked out at a Congregation and told us what his Bible said there was something arresting in the encounter.  I am certain that Mark is telling us that the Lord Jesus Christ's eyes were even more powerful.

                The gaze of Jesus connected with His loving approach gave a deep authority to His teaching.  He told the rich young man the truth.  As Jesus gazed upon him, loving Him deeply, He told him the truth about himself.  The Gospels tell us that Jesus knew people, in a personal and powerful way.  Jesus would speak with people in a way that forced them to confront their personal issues.  Those things which were in reality hindering people from really coming to the Lord for salvation would be brought up in very powerful ways in these conversations.  In this case it was the hold that this young man's possessions had upon Him that was at issue.   With the woman at the well in John 4 it was her string of relationships.  In John 3 Nicodemus was shown that He must be born again.  Jesus always seems to deal with the truth of us.  His love for us required no less of Him. 

                What about you?  What issue is the Lord Jesus Christ confronting in your life?  I have come to the conclusion that the Lord never wastes time.  His gaze always cuts through our evasions, bringing us to that point where we see clearly the thing that separates us from the eternal life He purchased for us on the cross.  His call is for us to surrender, to repent and to give ourselves unconditionally to Him.  Will you do this today?

                "My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don't show favouritism."

                                                                                                                                                                James 2:1

                I am constantly amazed by the depth of meaning which we find in the Word of God as we study it in depth.  Last Sunday as we focused upon the message of Jude 24 and 25 as well as Ephesians 3:20-21 as part of the devotional for our annual meeting we were brought to consider the infinite power of God working out His purposes among us.  There is nothing that He cannot do.  Part of this reflection was to bring us into a strengthening appreciation of the providence of God in our lives.  This is a message which is central to the Old Testament book of Esther.

                In James 2:1 we are brought to another one of these deep passages.  Here as James is beginning a discussion of the danger of partiality in the Church he takes us much deeper into the message of Christ.  What James literally seems to be saying in this verse is this.  "My brothers, stop constantly showing in partiality the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ the glorious one."  Based upon the Septuagint interpretation of the Old Testament there is a strong clue as to what James, a Christian who was familiar with the interpretation of the Scriptures in their Hebrew context, was thinking.  The Lord Jesus Christ is the Lord of Glory, the righteous one who would be coming at the close of the age to judge all of creation.  The fellowship of Christ's followers must be known as those who live lives characterized by the exaltation of Christ.  All that we do, including how we treat one another must come under this Christ-centredness.  This spirit seems to be breathed into the very heart of the Word of God.

                This is the attitude which we discover in George Muller's 6 Point Strategy for Finding the Will of God, written by Daniel C. Wilson.  Wilson starts with Muller's mission statement,

                "The orphan houses exist to display that God can be trusted and to encourage believers to take Him at His Word.  The first and primary object of the Institute was...that God might be magnified by the fact that the orphans under my care were, and are, provided all they need only by prayer and faith, without anyone being asked by me or my fellow labourers, whereby it might be seen that God is faithful still and hears prayer still."

                Muller then goes on to outline his strategy for finding the will of God.

•1)      "Get your own will out of the way.  I seek at the beginning to get my heart into such a state that it has no will of its own in regard to a given matter."

•2)      "Feelings are the sure path to delusions.  Avoid walking that path. Having done this, I do not leave the result to feeling or simple impression.  If so, I make myself liable to great delusions. "

•3)      "Seek the will of the Spirit in connection with the Word.  I seek the will of the Spirit of God through, or in connection with the Word of God.  The Spirit and the Word must be combined."

•4)      "Consider providential circumstances [a call for sanctified common sense]"

•5)      "Get on your knees in the Throne room.  I ask God in prayer to reveal His will to me aright."

•6)      "Make a deliberate judgment, and then keep testing it with prayer.  Thus, through prayer to God, the study of the Word, and reflection, I come to a deliberate judgment to the best of my ability and knowledge; and if my mind is thus at peace, and continues so after two or three more petitions, I proceed accordingly.  In trivial matters, and in transactions involving the most important issues, I have found this method always effective."

What a Christ exalting, wise and Biblical method Muller gives us here.  James calls us, at the beginning of the second chapter of his letter to a life that is lived with a focus upon the soon return of our King.  It seems that Muller shouts amen to the call of James to this Christ exalting lifestyle.

                "People were bringing little children to Jesus to have Him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them.  When Jesus saw this, He was indignant.  He said to them, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these.  I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the Kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it."  And He took the children in His arms, put His hands on them and blessed them."

                                                                                                                                                                Mark 10:13-16

                As Mark continues his discussion of discipleship in this second half of his Gospel he confronts us with the real nature of the Kingdom of God which we are entering into through Christ.  For many of us it seems as if the Kingdom of God is to be entered only by the strong and the self righteous.  We must, we think, make ourselves worthy of it.  To stay in it we must keep ourselves worthy of it.  When we look around for those that we feel called to evangelize we often find our attention falling on those who are worthy.  I am reminded of a conversation I had with a young woman, close to thirty years ago, about the need to evangelize a particular couple that she knew.  Her reasoning was that this couple, of all the people that she knew, were the most worthy of my labours because they were people whose lifestyle was almost that of believers except they did not yet believe in Jesus.  She reasoned that once they were converted they would make wonderful Christians.

                Now I was not against evangelizing them but my friend's reasoning was flawed.  We do not make ourselves worthy of salvation by our behaviour.  We come into the Kingdom of God as those who are broken and needy, absolutely humbled as we, in all of our sin, encounter the holiness of God.  This is what Jesus is saying as He deals with His disciple's pride in this text.  If we don't find ourselves coming to God as those who are among the weakest and most vulnerable in society then we will never enter into God's Kingdom.  The word that Mark uses here for little children is actually best translated as babies, infants.  In the Greek and Roman, as well as the Hebrew society of Mark's day these were the very lowest in society.  They had no rights.  Often they would be discarded by the important people of their day.  Historians tell us that in Roman and Greek society a father even had the right to discard a child for any reason.  This was a practice that was followed by many and which was not outlawed until the fourth century AD. 

                Jesus tells His disciples that if they are to enter into the Kingdom of God they must become like these humble children.  They must in fact come to the Lord as those who are in reality nothing in the world's eyes.  Being in this position we have nothing to bargain with.  All we can do is receive the gift that God gives us in Christ.  Once in the Kingdom we discover that we only stay in it by grace.  We cannot maintain our position by power, or any other strength that we might think we have.  Our position is held only by the will of our faithful God.  It is based upon His faithfulness.  Therefore we are secure because God will never be unfaithful to His own sovereign purpose. 

                Having come to Jesus in this way we then discover that there are many others, including children, who can enter this Kingdom.  It is open to anyone who will enter it through faith in Christ.  No one need be excluded because entrance does not depend upon us except in this one way we must accept the gift that God has given us in Christ.  Won't you come and join us in the Kingdom of God.

                "But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it - he will be blessed in what he does.  If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless.  Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

                                                                                                                                                                James 1:25-27

                In the eighth chapter of the book of Nehemiah there is a beautiful account given of the beginnings of a revival among the people of God who have returned to Jerusalem.  It comes about as the Word of God is being faithfully proclaimed to God's people.  Nehemiah describes it in the following way as he describes the faithful and prayerful work of the Levites.  "They read from the book of the law of God, making it clear and giving the meaning so that the people could understand what was being read." (Nehemiah 8:8)  Whenever I read a verse like that in the Scriptures it reminds me that this in fact the work that I have been called to.  To the best of my ability I have been called to proclaim God's Word by reading from it, and making it clear so that the people can understand what is being read.  In truth this means that I am not called to draw attention to myself, but to God.  The goal is that the Word of God, the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, as it is found in the Scriptures will create a people who will live it out in obedient faith.

                This is the goal towards which James seems to be leading believers as he writes his marvellous letter.  Real faith creates a complete transformation of our lives into the image of Christ.  We become Christ like in our lifestyle when we by faith begin to walk in obedience to the teaching of God's Word.  Kurt Richardson in his New American Commentary on James (Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1997) puts it this way.

                                "Religion is the external, observable qualities of the life of faith in Christ.  In this very important sense, the "religion" of the Christian and the Christian community is indispensible, but only if it is true to the faith.  This is what the Letter of James is all about.  Talk of the accountability of believers to the Word of God and to one another in the church is, after all, talk about religious observances practiced with sincerity.  The tongue becomes the test case for true religion."

                In the final three verses of the first chapter James gives us a summary of the message on what for many people seems to be a written sermon, in which he seeks to make it clear to us, so that we can all understand, just what it means for us to be a sincere follower of the way of the Lord Jesus Christ.  The genuineness of this way in our lives is revealed when we, by faith, begin to control our tongues like real believers, and live with the charity and the purity of those who are really following Jesus.  For James to be a follower of Jesus involves far more than just our saying so.  It redeems every part of our lives.  This must become our ambition and our hope as well because, as James tells us so forcefully, our future blessedness is tied to our present faith filled obedience to God's Word.

"It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law?"

                                                                                                                                                                Mark 10:5

                In Mark 10:1-12 we find an example of the wonderful graciousness of our God in dealing with us as sinners.  As those who have inherited the sinful nature of our first parents we are people whose lives are twisted and broken by rebellion against God, and who are as a result richly deserving of His wrath.  We have sinned and fallen short of His glory.  Nowhere is this seen more clearly than in our closest relationships.  Recent research has revealed that even among Christians there are a very high percentage of marriages which end in divorce.  Some have even suggested that for the North American Church there are presently more marriages that are ended by divorce than by death.  In Genesis 3:16 there seems to be a descriptive statement by God that one of the consequences of our falling into sin is that there will be conflict within the marriage relationship.  What had been created by God to be a glorious celebration of the one flesh relationship, and incidentally a picture of the union between Christ and His Church, has now been fractured.  Divorce is a reality for many marriages, just as it has always been since our fall into sin.

                When the Pharisees try to trap Jesus in His teaching by asking Him about whether it was lawful for a man to divorce his wife Jesus' answer begins with teaching about the grace of God.   This is a question asked of Jesus in the territory ruled by Herod Antipas, the King who had executed John the Baptist for daring to criticize him for marrying his brother's wife.  Jesus' answer begins with the concession of God to our sinfulness.  It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote this law.  It was a concession that was designed to regulate divorce and provide protection to the woman who was being divorced by the man.

                God is always gracious in His dealing with us.  He protects us.  He goes out of His way to redeem us.  Even while we are rebelling against Him He provides us with an atoning sacrifice that reconciles us to Him.  Paul writes, "You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.  Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die.  But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:6-8)  In this atoning death the Lord Jesus Christ reconciles us to God.  Having reconciled us to His Father Christ also brings about our reconciliation to one another.  If God can forgive us in this way then surely we can forgive one another.  Therefore there is hope for our closest relationships.  No matter how broken we are in Christ we can be put back together.  Jeremiah reminds us that in the New Covenant our sins which have been forgiven will no longer be remembered by God.  In faith we are now called to come to live in His gracious forgiveness.  What we have received from Him we are called to share with others.

"Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.  Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves.  Do what it says.  Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.  But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it - he will be blessed in what he does."

                                                                                                                                                                James 1:21-25

                "The Sovereign Lord has given me an instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary.  He wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being taught."

                                                                                                                                                                Isaiah 50:4

                As I have been exploring the letter of James I am finding myself confronted with that which seems to be at the heart of its message.  This is one of a cross-centred discipleship.  James is writing to Hebrew Christians who have been scattered by persecution.  They are facing some very harsh conditions as believers.  It is entirely possible that James is writing in response to the persecution which is described in Acts eight.  The believers he is writing to are perplexed and at times feeling as if they are being overwhelmed by their circumstances.  Into this difficult time James writes what is truly a pastoral letter which guides these believers into lives of genuine discipleship.

                James calls them, and us as well, into a discipleship centred upon the word which God has spoken to us in the Gospel.  If we need wisdom, as all of us do, we can ask God for it in faith and our generous God will give us exactly what we need.  However we must ask in faith.  That means that we must ask as genuine disciples.  A disciple wants to hear the teaching of his master.  Isaiah tells us that a disciple listens like one who wants to be taught.  We can recognise when a person who is under our instruction wants to learn.  There is a certain eager attentiveness to their listening.  They immediately apply the instructions they have received.  Contrast that with the person who seems to be listening, but we know from their body language and lack of attentiveness that the lesson will have to be repeated many times. 

                James tells us what the difference is.  It is found in a genuine disciple who is a doer of the word.  This is the person who hears the Gospel of redemption in Christ and who immediately acts upon it.  In fact it seems as if this is the definition of real faith in James' letter.  It is similar to the definition given in the book of Hebrews, and I suspect in the rest of the New Testament as well.  This is that faith responds to God's revelation with obedience.  The disciple hears God's Word and acts on it, becoming an obedient follower of God's directions.  Such a person is made teachable by faith.  They step out in obedience and find that God always comes through on His promises.  They do this because they have come to understand that in their own fleshly effort and wisdom they will always fail.  So they seek God's wisdom.  They discover it, knowing that it is in fact our only hope.  So they obey it and find life at the foot of the cross of Christ.

In recent weeks I have been wrestling with the Gospel of Mark.  After a break for Advent and Christmas we have renewed a careful, paragraph by paragraph study of this Gospel.  It has been amazing to me just how rich and powerful this Gospel really is.  I am constantly being driven to my knees in prayer as new insights surface in this study.  For instance I had never really thought through the process by which the LORD broke through the hardness of His disciple's hearts.  This week as I have been studying the final verses of the ninth chapter I am discovering the way in which the LORD convicts the disciples of their unbelief, and calls them to a life of humble service.  All of this is worked out against a backdrop of God's eternal judgement and the refining work of the Holy Spirit. 

                What the LORD Jesus Christ says to His disciples He also says to us.  This is what makes this Gospel so convicting.  The same hardness which Mark portrays as being in the hearts of the disciple is also in my heart.  The same need that they had to repent and become humble servants of the LORD exists within me.  Robert Murray McCheyne once said that what his Church needed most was a Godly pastor.  The same must be said here.  What the modern Church really needs is Godly leadership.  We might go further and say that we need this type of Godliness in every part of the modern Church.  There is no other way to get this but through the work of the indwelling Holy Spirit.  It is He alone who convicts us, and who regenerates us.   What we are called to is repentance, and obedient, prayerful, application of the Word of God to our lives. 

                The more carefully we study the Word of God the more clearly it reveals to us our true nature.  The disciple's hardness of heart is revealed as something which is deeply entrenched in their nature as it is in ours.  What is also joyfully apparent here is the infinite patience that the LORD displays towards His disciples, and presumably towards us as well.  He never takes His eyes off of the goal which He has of making them into the Apostles who will lead His Church.  They must be full of faith and of the Holy Spirit which also means that they must be humbly submissive to the LORD, and that they must be committed to a ministry of servanthood.  They are to be welcoming of the very lowest people in their society. Notice that they are to be welcoming, not just tolerant.  It is said that Charles Spurgeon won the right to preach in the community in which his church was located by years of faithful ministry visiting the sick and dying during an outbreak of plague.  While many others fled the city in fear of the illness Spurgeon stayed and humbly ministered God grace to those who were diseased.  That is the type of welcoming ministry which Mark portrays Jesus calling His disciple to take up. 

"My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry, for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.  Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves.  Do what it says."

                                                                                                                                                                James 1:19-22

                A number of years ago, when I first read John Miller's little book Outgrowing the Ingrown Church I was struck by one of the phrases that he used.  This was that for him faith involved his giving himself to God without reservation, and then taking his courage in his hands and obeying God in everything that God commanded.  I wondered just what Miller meant by such a powerful statement.  It seemed that he was trying to define for us just what a life of faith looked like.  How do we know if we are living by faith or in the flesh?  How do we live in the Spirit, being spiritually minded as we live out our lives?  We use these expressions so glibly.  What does a truly spiritual life look like?

                Of all places to find answers to these questions the book of James seems to be an unlikely place.  Here is a book that seems to teach salvation by works.  At least that is what we think.  However, when we take a closer look we discover that James is really calling us to live a lifestyle which is truly spiritual because it has been regenerated by the Holy Spirit.  What does such a life look like?

                James tells us that God has willed to give us new birth through the word of truth.  He anchors the Christian life in regeneration, the work of the Holy Spirit bringing us to new life through faith in the LORD Jesus Christ.  In the eighteenth century young missionaries like John and Charles Wesley, and George Whitefield discovered this teaching about regeneration by the work of the Holy Spirit through faith in Christ.  Their testimony was that as they came to believe in Christ they found, to use John Wesley's word, "their hearts strangely warmed."  They began to preach this Word throughout the villages and towns in Britain and many thousands came to faith in Christ.  They had returned to the Gospel message of the New Testament.

                In tremendously practical terms James outlines for us in his letter this message of regeneration.  It is characterized by the righteousness of God being created within us.  This is not our righteousness it is His given to us through faith.  Almost immediately it begins to work itself out in our lives.  It produces the fruit of righteousness transforming our speech and our attitudes.  It causes us to obey the Word of God.  It is almost as if that word is being written into our hearts.  In fact that is what two Old Testament Prophets said God would do.

                Jeremiah writes, ""The time is coming," declares the LORD, "When I will make a new covenant with the House of Israel and with the House of Judah.  It will not be like the Covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my Covenant, though I was a husband to them," declares the LORD.  "This is the Covenant I will make with the House of Israel after that time," declares the LORD.  "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.  I will be their God, and they will be my people."" (Jeremiah 31:31-33)

                Ezekiel echoes Jeremiah's words in this way, "I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols.  I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.  And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws."

                                                                                                                                                (Ezekiel 36:25-27)

                James tells us that Spiritual Christianity is a faith that leads us to obey God's Word through the power of God's Spirit in all manner of practical ways.  It starts with our accepting by faith the implanted word of God which comes to us in the Gospel.

"And we will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word."

                                                                                                                                                                Acts 6:4

                Over the past few weeks, in conversations with others, in my reading, in message preparation, and in my own personal Bible Study the Lord has impressed on my heart the call to servant hood.  In Mark 9 as we trace through the Gospel account we are confronted by the means that the Lord Jesus Christ used to break up the hard heartedness of His disciples.  As I write this I am reminded of the statement of john Newton regarding his aim in preaching.  "My grand point in preaching is to break the hard heart, and to heal the broken one."  It seems to me that this was also the intentional approach that the Lord Jesus Christ was following.  Mark presents Jesus as the suffering servant who has come to redeem His people.  His method of transforming His Disciples gives us a wonderful example of how He is dealing with us, as well a pattern for us to follow in serving others.

                The Disciples eventually got the message.  Acts 6 tells us that as they wrestled with a crisis in the Church in Jerusalem that they went back to the Godly priority that they had been called to.  They recognised that they had been appointed to serve the people of God through a commitment to the Word of God and to prayer.  This does not mean that they were not engaged in other tasks.  What it tells us is that they would not allow those other urgent things to move them away from the essential service that they had been called to.  We should be deeply thankful that this is the case because if they had given in to the temptation to neglect the Word of God and prayer we would not have the New Testament today.  In numerous places the Scriptures tell us that these Apostles we called to be taught of the Holy Spirit what the word was that the Lord was speaking to His people.  They listened, and they taught, and eventually they wrote down that New Testament word for the benefit of all of us.  We must praise God for their faithfulness in their calling.

                There is a story told about some Burmese Christian leaders who were in conversation with some missionaries and when the topic of discussion turned to the pioneer missionary Adoniram Judson, to a person they emphasized with tears that he was the one man that they all owed their salvation to because it was Judson who translated the Scriptures into their language.  What a wonderful legacy to leave behind.  In reality we can all say that from a human point of view we owe our salvation to the faithful service of those Apostles who were the human authors that God used to write the New Testament.

                What these thoughts teach us is that we are called to serve God by serving His people.  As servants of God we find that there are many things that we could be doing, some of which will seem to be incredibly urgent.  We must resist the call to be ruled by the urgent things that are thrust upon us so that we will be able to engage in the essential tasks of service which we have been called to.  A true servant is one who listens for his master's voice.  That is the one who must be obeyed.  When our Lord calls us we obey by serving in that place and means that He appoints.  To serve in this way requires brokenness before the Lord because we will find ourselves following in a way that will always be hidden.  The Lord always gets the credit.  We are merely His faithful servants.

                "He chose to give us birth through the word of truth that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all He created."

                                                                                                                                                                James 1:18

                So often when it comes to the annual process of reflection that leads us to make resolutions regarding the coming year, we confine ourselves to the things that we will do.  We meditate upon our behaviour and then come up with a list of those behaviours which we will change in order to make ourselves into better persons.  We have been taught from infancy that we are to behave in a certain way.  Somehow we find ourselves thinking that the improvement of our lives is entirely dependent upon ourselves.  It is a matter of will power and effort.  We can win at life, as defined by the world around us, if we just have faith in ourselves and work hard enough at it.

                The problem with this approach to life and to transformation is that largely leaves our real nature, our flesh, untouched.  Richard Lovelace commented in his Dynamics of the Spiritual Life that much of our behaviour as Christians leads our flesh untouched by God's grace because it is merely the practice of worldly methods in the guise of Christian grace.  D. M. Lloyd-Jones once wrote to his daughter that in the realm of Christian behaviour "to be always comes before to do."  What Lloyd-Jones was pointing out was that before we can expect Christian behaviour, even from ourselves, we must in fact be Christian.  This is the work of God alone.  It is He who, by the work of the Holy Spirit applying the Gospel of Christ to our lives, makes us into a new creation.

                I believe that this is what James is writing about in the eighteenth verse of his first chapter when he tells us that God "chose to give us birth through the word of truth."  This is the same principle that the Lord Jesus Christ spoke about in John 3, and the Old Testament Prophet Jeremiah spoke about in chapter 31 when he introduced us to the New Covenant.  Peter outlines it in the following way, "For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring Word of God." (1 Peter 1:23)  The making of us into Christian men and women is God's work done within us.  We therefore become people who begin to do naturally what God has created us to do by His grace.

                As James outlines it for us God's purpose is to create in us this new nature that will naturally produce the fruit of Godliness as we live out what God has created us to be.  We are therefore people whose very existence is a kind of firstfruits of all that God has created.  What this means is that our existence as believers is a guarantee of the full harvest of God's people being drawn in.  He is at work in us creating a people who will be in earnest to live a Christ like life.  To be sure we live this life imperfectly, because we must still wrestle with our sin nature.  However God is in fact at work in us.  We must therefore trust ourselves to His grace.  God's sure and perfect work is being accomplished in us. 

                This year as we make our resolutions, let us make sure that we put at the top of our list, a casting of ourselves upon the LORD that His gracious work will be done in us.