MONDAY 28 June 2021 “Wise living” James 4:13-17

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Hello my ‘Walking with Jesus” friends on this Monday as we begin a new week together,

I wonder how full your calendar is for this week and then all of July? In many parts of the world this is now the heart of summer, ‘vacation’ time. Many people have been in ‘lockdown’ due to COVID for so long, I wonder if we’ll see these next weeks filled with even more activity than normal? Prior to COVID most people couldn’t imagine what life would be like if suddenly much of their life activity was cancelled, closed down! But now…

Once again in our walking with James through his Biblical letter, we come to something he wrote 2000 years ago that you could easily write across your busy calendar in June 2021. Look at James 4:13, my friends: “Now listen, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to this city or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.’ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes! Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”

We make our plans with confidence that it will happen as we planned, don’t we? We purchase airplane tickets, we reserve hotel rooms, we enroll in study programs, we make medical appointments, we even lock in dates for weddings and honeymoons… but in truth, that is all done with HOPE that things will work out as planned. I wonder, as you make your future plans, how often do you look for the “free cancellation” option, holding your future plans lightly? James is calling us to consider how little in life we really control! COVID has shown us that hasn’t it? Unexpected accidents or illnesses or storms that delay travel and so much more can terribly disrupt the most carefully laid plans. Remember the last time change or cancellation happened to your plans?

James is writing to followers of Jesus Christ in the first century who, like we, tried their best to make firm plans as they looked into their future. But my friends, do you agree that ONLY God can see the future clearly? And therefore as we make our plans, wisdom would advise us to make them cautiously, recognizing there is so much that could happen to change those plans, much of which is out of our control, but all of which is known to God! In fact do you remember the powerful wisdom found in Psalm 139? “O LORD, You know when I sit and when I rise; You perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; You are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue You know it completely O LORD… Where can I go from Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your Presence?… All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be!…” Have you recently pondered the unlimited knowledge of God… past, present and future? The word for that is OMNISCIENCE! There is not anything God doesn’t know or can’t understand. In comparison, we know so little, don’t we? The past dims in our memory, we only know what we experience in the present, and we really know nothing with unchangeable certainty about the future, except the things God holds in His hands.

So James makes this powerful statement, to all of humanity in view of all this: “…you do not know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes…” (James 4:14) It’s true isn’t it? When is the last time you read through the obituary page in the newspaper, or you scanned the online obituaries from your local funeral home? A person’s entire lifetime… condensed to a few lines, a few paragraphs at most? That’s why James compares my lifetime and yours to a wisp of smoke or fog which is easily dissipated by a small breeze. So in view of these realities… the unpredictability of the future, and the finiteness of life on earth… how do we live life with purpose, meaning, fulfillment, and leave a legacy that is not easily forgotten by those who knew us?

Do you see what James suggests? “You ought to say ‘if it is the Lord’s will, we will do this or that.'” I hear James advising that you and I will find fulfillment and meaning in life IF you and I live our lives in lock step with Jesus and HIS will for us! If you and I live our lives in full partnership with God our creator. If we live our lives with our hearts fully in tune with, fully aligned with God’s Heart for each of us! Does that sound reasonable or ridiculous to you my friends?

You see, I make that statement because God’s Word tells me THIS about you and me: God made us each according to His unique design for each of us, (Ps. 139:13-16; Jer. 1:5) and Jesus died to pay our sin debt so we could live forgiven and free from our sin (Ephesians 1:7) and when we trust Jesus we are adopted by God as His sons or daughters, (Romans 8:14-17) and Jesus sends us out to live as His Ambassador (2 Corinthians 5:20). Thus, when I live my life fully aligned with God’s guidance of me by His Holy Spirit living in me… my life will have purpose, meaning, fulfillment and leave a legacy…regardless of the length of time my life on earth lasts. This means that EVERY day can be an adventure of ‘walking in lock step with Jesus’! What about you, my friends? What’s your life plan?

Then in closing today, James gives us one more, powerful statement: “Anyone, then, who knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.” (James 4:17) You see, if I’m walking everyday with my heart aligned with the heart of God for me, and I’m living my life in lock step with Jesus as led by the Holy Spirit alive in me, then I’m not going to have much difficulty discerning what is right or wrong for me all day, everyday!

Thus I’m sure you see, if you join me in this type of living, we will face two choices many times every day:

1. What will I do about what I know to be GOOD that I sense the Holy Spirit wants me to do? Will I do it, or will I refuse, or do it partially but not fully, or postpone it?

2. Second big choice I will face everyday: what will I do about what I know to be WRONG, that I sense the Holy Spirit is warning me to stay away from? Will I steer clear of it or will I dabble in it, or embrace it, or leap headlong into it with full vigor?

My friends, I really like how James writes, how about you? No beating around the bush. Straightforward, clear, no nonsense. We can’t say we didn’t hear, nor can we say we don’t understand. So. . . in closing I ask one simple question: how does God want James 4:13-17 to affect the rest of your life and mine? I invite you to ponder that and maybe even write that question in your journal and then write a thoughtful answer… and then listen to this song sung by the Peterson family, and make it your plan to live God’s plan for your life!

Today’s Scripture is James 4:13-17.

Choose below to read or listen.

Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.

Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.

Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)

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