It’s Right Because it Is!

 

James 1:17  Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

God is the Father of LIGHTS.  Think about it.  He’s not just talking about Jesus because it is plural…light(S).  We are lights in the world and to be those lights we should have every good and perfect gift that we need to accomplish God’s will.  In part two of this scripture, there is NO changing or even a SHADOW of changing in God.  How often have you changed your mind because it was just too hard to do right?  Whatever is in shadow is in darkness.  Darkness comes from Satan.  When God says to move forward but fear, doubt and lies makes you turn away then you have experienced a SHADOW of turning.  Rather than being defeated by shadows, use every one of those good and perfect gifts God has assigned you and kick the backside of any shadows.

18 Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

Everything contained in the Bible was placed there by God’s will.  Never doubt this fact.  The Bible is alive and filled with the Spirit.  The Words are alive and accomplish whatever God requires.  Angels were created servants of God but we are different.  We are the created children of God.  We were first born of the flesh and then born again of the spirit.  First, man was; and now, second, the spirit makes us alive spiritually.  Our preaching and teaching and moving in the gifts will create new births and on and on.  As long as we believe that scripture is alive and honor it as God’s Word, people will continue to be born again.

19 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: 20 For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.

My entire purpose today was to get right here.

I was once in the United States Air Force.  I loved God, but I was dedicated to my country too.  These days my love for God has grown and I continue to pray for my nation, specifically its leadership, to follow the tenets of God’s Word.  The first thing Paul says here is, “Be swift to hear.”  A more blunt way of saying this would be, “Shut up and listen.”  Stop pouring words that make no scriptural sense out of your mouth.  Listen to preaching and teaching until the words that exit your mouth are words of life and faith. 

Anger, frustration, wrath, these are things we humans do not deal well with.  Rather than loving more than we hate, we allow negative feelings to push us into negative actions and we fail to be children of light.  How awful to be damaged by a child of light who is in darkness. 

A man comes and murders your saved mother.  He curses you and God and is arrested.  God impresses that man to contact you from jail and asks you to come speak to him.  You go thinking how angry you are but curious why he might want you to talk to him.  When you get there he begins to laugh at you for believing in God and what good did it do for you and your mother to believe now that she is dead. 

How would you feel?  What would you do?  What would you say?  Would you blow it?

I expect these responses  in advance since I know Satan is evil and the father of lies.  If that person begins to mock me about my mother and her being dead I immediately realize, she is not dead.  She is in glory with God.  He has only destroyed her shell and except for a time gap, I will be with her fairly soon and forever.  Since she is not dead and better off than I am, it allows me to consider the poor lost tortured man before me.  What kind of pain does it take to lash out so?  How badly was he abused as a child?  What might help him reach out to God for forgiveness and healing?

Because I know this man as a lost soul and know my mother as a saved soul my choices are clear.  What might save and deliver him from Satan’s clutches?  If Satan has deprived me of several years with my mother on earth, I need to try and deprive him of this man’s company in hell.  I can no longer be filled with rage because there is no reason for it.  If I die I gain so threats to me don’t work.  He did my mother a favor without knowing it.  She is filled with joy in God’s presence.  My only response is to get this poor deluded lost soul saved so he does not suffer in hell.

This would be more difficult if my mom wasn’t saved.  That would cause me significant grief.  In that case I would need to understand that Satan has ended one future and I don’t want him to get away with ending another.  It becomes a war where we wrestle not against murdered and murderer but against principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness in high places.  He could no more have stopped himself from this crime than to flap his arms and fly.  He was caught and trapped and only God can set him free.

I don’t say this is an easy lesson, but please understand that no matter who needs our help, it is to OUR advantage to give it.  It honors God and it honors Christ’s sacrifice.  As the Marines say, “Semper Fi”  Always faithful.

Win one for the KING!