Wednesday July 20, 2022

Wednesday – July 20th – James 4:1     -----      
 
4:1)  What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you?
 
The Daily Walk Bible inspirational thought for today:
      YOU CANNOT HAVE A HOLY COUNTRY UNTIL YOU HAVE HOLY CITIZENS.

     Happy Wednesday to you all. What a great week for SunRise! Our youth mission team is in their second full day of working in Viper, Kentucky and all of us not there have our own mission fields right where God has planted us. All Kingdom work counts regardless of the location. Our inspirational thought for today – written to accompany our reading through the Bible program - is connected to the Old Testament prophet Isaiah. He was preaching to the nation of Judah in an attempt to get them to return to a Godly lifestyle and to walk away from the pagan influences found all around them. Sadly, this very statement could reflect almost any moment in time throughout history. The direction of a family, a church, a community, a nation or the world will be directly influenced by the spiritual depth of the people comprising each of those circles of life. The first and most important question I need to ask – long before I go pointing fingers at others – is my life one that would influence others to the holy side of God or to the unholy side of the world?

     In our pick verse today, we open chapter four and James’ new focus on how God asks for clean hands and pure hearts from each of us. Even though this is a new subject matter for James he continues to explore the evil results of envy and self-seeking agendas and how it spills into this teaching. As you read today’s scripture the question to ask if it is possible for the attitudes listed here to become problems for believers? The answer is simple – Yes! Even though James is writing to those who are believes in the first century – many who had actually seen Jesus, heard Him speak, witnessed Him perform miracles, and/or saw His resurrected body – the temptations of being human still exist. There was/is no guarantee that being a follower of Jesus will automatically exempt a person from temptation and sin. We will be tempted, and there will be times we fall to temptation. Each of us should focus on seeing through the fallacy of temptations and living with clean hands and pure hearts.  

Blessings
  Pastor Jim
Thursday – July 21st – James 4:2-3

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