O to Grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let that grace now, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wander, Lord I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love.
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for thy courts above.
-Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, Robert Robinson
The Power of Prayer (James 5:13-18)
“You see, there is “prayer” and there is God-given prayer. The former is superficial, the work of orphans who may be religious people but who are unwilling to surrender human independence to the leadership of Christ. God given prayer and praise have as their essence a waiting on God, a willingness to be wrought upon by the hammer and the fire of the Almighty, until the chains of self-centered desires fall away from the personality, and the love of Christ becomes the deepest hunger of the inner life.”
—Jack Miller, Heart of a Servant Leader
The Lord is Coming Back (James 5:7-12)
The first coming of Christ the Lord, God's Son and our God, was in obscurity; the second will be in sight of the whole world. When he came in obscurity no one recognized him but his own servants; when he comes openly he will be known by both good people and bad. When he came in obscurity it was to be judged; when he comes openly it will be to judge. ... Silent when accused, he will not be silent as judge. And he is not silent now. By no means; when people of today recognize his voice and despise him, Scripture assures us he will not be silent...
- Augustine of Hippo
Generous Justice (James 5:1-6)
“If a person has grasped the meaning of God's grace in his heart, he will do justice. If he doesn't live justly, then he may say with his lips that he is grateful for God's grace, but in his heart he is far from him. If he doesn't care about the poor, it reveals that at best he doesn't understand the grace he has experienced, and at worst he has not really encountered the saving mercy of God. Grace should make you just.”
- Tim Keller, Generous Justice
Our Defining Journey (Hebrews 2:6-10)
These troubles and distresses that you go through in these waters are no sign that God hath forsaken you, but are sent to try you whether you will call to mind that which heretofore you have received of his goodness, and live upon him in your distresses.
—John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress
Divine Promise (James 4:13-17)
“Neither the nature of any created thing,… nor the weakness of the flesh, can prevail against the will of God. For God is not subject to created things, but created things to God; and all things yield obedience to his will.” —Irenaeus, Against Heresies 5.5.2.
Living in Peace (James 4:1-12)
Nietzsche says that the illusion of willpower rests on our tendency to identify with the part of our soul that commands, not the part that obeys. On one hand, the will is desire. On the other, the will is necessary only when you need to act against your desires. The will is both problem and solution, and to fight will with will is to end up even more entangled.
—Meghan O’Gieblyn
For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. … Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
—Romans 7
Earthly Wisdom vs Wisdom From Above (James 3:13-18)
“Love for our neighbors, then, like love for ourselves, involves something vastly more significant than the meeting of individual needs. It involves God’s reaching out in us and through us to build a kingdom, a sphere of rulership, in which his will is done in the fallen world as it is in the sinless heavens; in which cruelty and disorder and the distortion caused by sin are supplanted by love, order, and righteousness. Loving obedience to God produces much more than individual goodness, respectability and the alleviation of suffering. It builds the kingdom of heaven.”
-Richard Lovelace, Renewal as a Way of Life
Definition of Living Faith (James 2:14-26)
If you want to give a hungry man a tract, wrap it up in a sandwich. — Charles H Spurgeon
Thirst for Justice (Habakkuk 2:1-20)
“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
— Romans 1:16-17
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