James 1:19-20
As a child of God; our number one focus is bringing souls to Christ… Despite how many various ways we accomplish this task, we all must first give a (n) ear to the cries of the people with whom we come in contact with… No matter how much we study the word of God, no matter how much time we spend in devotion to the Lord; the mission that we have will fail if we do not learn to lesson to others… We can quote many scriptures from our hearts or minds; however, the scripture or the words which the person needs most to hear from you may not be spoken simply because we don’t know where they are in their lives… James reminds us today that we must be swift to hear… Every person you come in contact with has a story; every person you meet has a past and as a child of God you must respect the paths that we have all traveled so that lives can be touched and altered… People are turned away from God not because of His ways, but because of ours… We allow wrath to rear its ugly head in our lives when we confront a (n) obstacle and so instead of showing our faith, we show how much we still need to learn and mature… Growing up with 7 siblings (yes, seven), arguments seem to be a daily routine within our household; whether someone was wronged, a (n) item was taken or the channel on the television was switched; it was never a matter of talking through things but rather yelling out of control until our parents stepped in and took whatever we were arguing about away from us… Being rebellious and retaliatory are natural traits of human nature…
To be able to refrain from what comes naturally is a testament to your faith and advancement in the will of God… Sin is natural; however when we make attempts to avoid sin and live a life that is pleasing to God we are displaying the characteristics that a child of God should display and we are living the life that James speaks of in our focus verses today… Self control demonstrates how far we have grown in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ… James reminds us today that we must be swift to hear, butslow to speak (I have often been told that we were given one mouth and two ears for a reason)… I was once told that the reasoning behind this was so that we would speak half as much as we listen… If we speak more than we listen, James teaches us today that we are not walking in the will of God…The bible tells us that we are to repay no man evil for evil, but that we are to give room for God’s vengeance and let Him repay… When we try and take matters into our own hands we remove God from the situation and nothing good can come of it… We must learn that there is a difference between listening and hearing… We are called not to simply listen to words, but hear what the meaning of the words are and when we do this we can defuse situations instead of allowing them to spread like a wildfire… Today let us focus on this verses and test ourselves in the area of hearing; instead of speaking when something goes wrong hear what the other person has to say, digest what it is that they have said and pray that if and when you open your mouth you do so in a Godly manner and not out of vengeance…
When we give place to our own vengeance James tells us that it doesn’t work the righteousness of God… When we tap into our own wrath we tap into the deep dark corner of our soul that contains evil intent and bitter desires… Human’s wrath is what caused David to kill Uriah, the wrath of man is what led Judas to hang himself realizing that he missed up and man’s wrath is what led Jesus to the cross… We cannot be in the will of God if we give room to our own wrath, that’s why we will not be in the righteousness of God… Remember that Jesus was on trial and He heard all the testimonies against Him, He never said a word until a question was posed… Today, let us model Jesus by living according to the will of God and walking in His precepts… It is only by the grace of God and His spirit that we have life and can live; the bible says that when we crossover from this life to the next that our bodies will change (the corruptible must put on incorruptible and the mortal must be clothed with immortality)… We have not crossed over yet, so we are still corruptible and mortal… I say this because sin still lives within us and it displays itself in the areas we allow it too... Sure, we may not be killing people physically, but when we engage our mouths with wrath in bitterness we are killing them mentally and placing obstacles between us in the will of God… Proverbs 4:24 says,“Put away perversity from your mouth; keep corrupt talk far from your lips.” It’s good for people to see a change in you, it means that you are leaving what comes natural and moving toward what is more spiritual…
ALL FOR HIS GLORY!
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