Notice on a slight format change:

Except for July 2012, these are mostly a collection of current devotional notes.

July 2012 is a re-write of old quiet times. My second child was born Nov 11, 1987 with multiple birth defects. I've been re-reading my QT notes from that time in my life, and have included them here. They cover the time before the birth and the few years immediately after the birth. They are tagged "historical." I added new insights and labeled them: ((TODAY, dd mmm yy)).

Thursday, May 25, 2023

QT 5/25/2023 James 4:13-17, Letting God into my whole life

James 4:13–17 (ESV) —

13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— 14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. 17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

 

NOTE: The book of James has been called the Proverbs of the NT because of the seeming lack of structure. But I do believe these things fit in a rational pattern. James has been discoursing on selfishness, pride, double-mindedness, slander, and judging. Now he brings up a hypothetical example of a rich man, and his obliviousness to his own presumption. The man has a business plan that makes no mention of the Lord. And his presumption was a certain style of boasting (like, "I always make a lot of money when I do this"). James calls the boasting arrogance. And many believers today are very similar in this regard. We live in buckets called secular (work, entertainment, hobby, etc.,) and spiritual. But a mature faith brings the secular and the spiritual together into one bucket called "a walk with God." This is why the last verse is so key "So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin." Sin does not reside in just the spiritual bucket but it part and parcel of all of life. When we make a business deal that takes advantage of someone, that is sin. It does not matter what part of life it relates to. Sin is anything we know is wrong and God is part of every aspect of our life.

 

PONDER:

  1. Do I walk with God in every aspect of my life?
  2. Do I separate the spiritual from the secular? If so, I am wrong.

 

PRAYER: Father, help me to live my life in a way that pleases you in all aspects, whatever it may be. Forgive for my sin. Forgive me for my laziness.

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