I was planning on writing about prayer this morning anyway, and the Boston tragedy seems morbidly appropriate.

These scenes are getting old, aren’t they? It seems that we’re seeing them with an all-too-frequent regularity. I first saw on Twitter that smoke was rising from buildings near the end of the Boston Marathon, then bystanders posted about explosions, injuries, chaos, confusion.

James’ context and what’s going on in Boston aren’t perfectly analogous, of course, but he points to some relevant issues:

Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven (James 5:14-15).

Aside from the terrorist aspect (which we’ll address below), events like this remind us that bad things often affect these temporary bodies we live in. Several friends have cancer, another is dealing with the after-effects of a bad car wreck, and hundreds of people are hurting because of what happened yesterday.

These bodies get broken, sometimes mangled and twisted, often irreparably so. I think it ought to remind us—like it did Paul—that these are tents that aren’t suited for permanence (cf. 2 Corinthians 5).

But James’ words also remind us to pay attention to physical needs. When people are sick, pray for them. Do what you can to help them, to heal them, to ease their suffering. Maybe we can’t offer much direct help to the people in Boston this morning, but we ought to pray hard for them. Pray that God eases their pain and heals them completely. Ask him to let his mercy and compassion be seen through the response of believers.

But there’s another point in James’ message, and it’s a little more difficult to grasp (or swallow): there’s often a connection between physical suffering and sin. That doesn’t mean that people who suffer are hurting because of their own sin; suffering often happens because of the sins of others.

But we live in a world in which bad things happen, and it’s because of sin. From the time that Adam and Eve took those forbidden bites, our world started suffering.

As if we needed another reminder, yesterday asks us to think again about the fallenness of our world. Cowardice, cruelty, twisted hatred, misguided religious fervor—perhaps we’ll discover that these and other motivations played into yesterday’s cruelty.

The good news is, Jesus is in the process of fixing it all. He’s bringing his people a new heavens and a new earth—one with no bombs or explosions, no terrorism, and also no cancer, pain, loneliness or suffering.

But until that day comes, this is the world we live in. And when stuff like this happens, we pray hard, and we try to help people heal, and we also hope that they’ll embrace the only One who can take them to a better world.

You’ve probably heard stories of the good ole days when people just shook hands over deals . . . when the attorney-written, loophole-closing, fifty-page contracts of today were unknown.

“A man’s word is his bond,” people said. “A handshake is as good as a contract.”

I’m not sure if this is a case of romanticizing and therefore exaggerating the past, or if some people really did make big deals with nothing more than a nod of the head and a shake of the hand.

Here’s what I do know: with Christians, our word really ought to be our bond. When we tell people we’ll do something, we ought to break our necks to do it. We shouldn’t need a stack of Bibles or somebody’s grave to swear on or by.

Why?

Because we serve a God of truth, so we tell the truth, unadorned by extra words meant to convince people we really mean it.

James knew well what Jesus had taught, and he includes a loose quotation of one of the Lord’s sayings (cf. Matthew 5:33-37):

But above all, my brothers, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath, but let your “yes” be yes and your “no” be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation (James 5:12).

We’ve tried to teach our kids this. If you tell somebody something, you don’t need to say “I swear it’s true” or “I swear I’ll do it” or even “I promise.”

It won’t take people too long to figure out if you’re a truth-teller or not. If you are, they won’t require some kind of verbal proof that you mean what you say.

I think that’s what James is getting at here. I don’t think he’s saying there’s anything wrong with written contracts or taking an oath in a courtroom. He’s telling us to tell the truth.

Always.

He’s telling us to do what we say we’re going to do.

Always.

That means that we parents keep our promises to our kids. If we tell them we’re going to be at their soccer game at 5:00, it ought to take an earth-shattering event to keep us from being there.

The same thing applies to our spouses, our co-workers, our neighbors, the folks at church.

Christians are truth-tellers, and we don’t need oaths to convince people of it.

If they know us, they ought to know what we mean when we say “yes” or “no.”

Always.

I’m sitting at a coffee shop as I type these words, and I can’t help but overhear bits of the conversation coming from the table behind me. They’ve touched on different topics—divorce, job problems, their kids’ lives, etc.—but disappointment and concern seem to be lying just beneath the surface.

It’s everywhere, of course, from the coffee shop in the suburb to the mill in a small town to the boardroom in a downtown highrise. People are struggling. Job woes, health problems, marriage break-ups, rebellious kids, unfulfilled dreams. The list goes on.

Most of us put on a happy face when we’re in public, and we remove the mask only at certain times in front of certain people. Behind the forced smile is a litany of unspoken concerns:

Will my kids turn out okay?

Will this stress ever get better?

Will I ever meet life’s demands more consistently?

Will my health be okay?

We’ve come a long way in the last fifty years. We can do things our grandparents never imagined.

But we haven’t removed worry, have we? And we never will, not here, not on this planet, not in this life.

James’ world was different in many ways—different language, different culture, different customs—but the people weren’t so different from us.

I know this, at least in part, because of what he writes here:

As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful (James 5:10-11).

James’ people were struggling, and they were asking the question people in every culture and every time have asked: How will I make it through this?

He does the only thing anyone can do: he points them to the Lord.

He doesn’t tell them everything will work out the way they hoped. He doesn’t tell them the suffering will stop right now.

He simply promises them that a blessing from the Lord awaits everyone who remains steadfast.

Hang in there, he says. The Lord knows, he cares, and he’s got a purpose in all this.

Maybe James’ message hits pretty close to home with you today. If so, I hope you’ll hear him. I hope you’ll see the importance of staying close to Jesus. I hope you’ll hang in there.

We consider those blessed who remained steadfast, James wrote, and that’s the same promise the Lord gives you today.

If you stay steadfast, he’ll bless you. It’s his promise.

Some disheartening things are currently happening in our country. I sometimes wonder how much longer God will put up with what we’re doing.

More people are rejecting his plan for marriage for a less offensive, more “tolerant” approach. Unborn babies are still being killed, and fewer people believe in Jesus Christ as God’s revelation of himself.

I don’t want to be overly dramatic, but I fear that it won’t be long before it will be illegal for us to teach that God intends for marriage to be between a man and a woman, that same-sex marriages are inconsistent with his will. I wonder how much longer we’ll able to preach the Bible without interference from the government.

Some of James’ readers were really struggling. They were apparently being oppressed by people in positions of authority, and they were getting tired of it. It seems they were questioning how much longer they could hold out.

So James tells them:

Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand (James
5:7-8).

Notice what James tells them: Keep your eyes focused on the future return of Jesus. Twice in these verses he mentions the Lord’s second coming.

He uses a farmer’s patience as an example. Just as he plants and fertilizes and waits for the harvest, so must Christians.

“Everything will happen when it’s supposed to,” James says. “Just hang in there.”

It’s healthy for all of us to be future-focused. It’s easy to get discouraged because of what we see around us. Maybe it’s world or national events, or maybe it’s something closer to home.

Maybe you’re sick or discouraged or worried.

Maybe you’re tired or homesick.

Maybe your faith is being challenged, and you’re wondering how much longer you can hold out.

But he’s coming back.

He’s coming back soon.

And when he comes back, he’ll reward your faithfulness.

“Soon” in the Bible doesn’t always mean soon according to our timetables, though. We’re living in the final age of the world—the Christian age—and at some point Jesus will return and deliver the kingdom to the Father.

But we know for sure he’s coming back, and whatever we’re worried about right now won’t be an issue then.

We’ll no longer be tired or discouraged or worried.

We won’t be fretting over the trajectory of American morality and integrity.

Our backs won’t hurt, and we won’t be sighing, crying, or dying.

He’s coming back.

Staying focused on that will help us endure whatever we face in this temporary life.

The Bible says a lot about riches, and most of it isn’t pleasant. For some reason I find myself skipping these passages, or explaining why they don’t really mean what they say . . . or why they don’t apply to me or the people I’m teaching.

Could it have something to do with the fact that—merely because I have access to clean drinking water and plenty of food—I’m among the world’s wealthiest?

It might.

Here’s one of the Bible’s strongest warnings:

Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days. Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you (James 5:1-6).

Here’s the caveat you’re expecting: James isn’t teaching that rich Christians are inherently living outside of God’s will. It seems clear he was addressing some specific sins in his audience. They were using their money and the position it gave them to mistreat people who were beneath them on the socio-economic scale.

With that caveat aside, however, James reflects a principle that’s consistent in every Bible warning about money: having it brings dangerous temptations.

That’s why Jesus told the rich ruler to sell what he had and give the money to the poor.

That’s why the villain of one of his stories was a rich man who wasn’t guilty of anything overtly “bad” (according to what the story said).

That’s why he condemned a man who made the seemingly wise business decision of replacing his storage buildings with bigger ones.

And that’s probably why we ought to listen carefully to what he says about our money. Having things can cause us to think we’re above other people. It can take our eyes off Jesus. It can lead us to put our trust in what we’ve got instead of in God. It can cause us to mistreat people to our advantage (as with James’ readers).

In short, it can become a god to us.

We should read James carefully and resist the temptation to apply what he says to the all-about-his-stuff guy we work with or the mega-rich entrepreneur we know.

There’s a pretty good chance we ourselves have been tempted to let our stuff take our eyes off the Savior.

Most of us like to plan. One-year, five-year, ten-year plans. What we’ll do, when we’ll do it, and how we’ll get there.

If we invest 10% of our income starting at age 25, we’ll retire at 65 with no financial worries. Next year we’re going on vacation. Next month we’ll take a couple days off from work. Next week we’ll get this report done or that chore finished.

“See you Friday night,” we say without thinking. “I’ll be there at 6:00.”

James doesn’t particularly like all that, or at least he’s got a strongly worded warning:

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”—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. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin (James 4:13-17).

I don’t think James is against retirement plans, or saving up for a vacation. What he doesn’t like—what God doesn’t like—is when we make plans as if we control the future.

As if we’re certain what’ll happen. Like the if-then connection between now and future events is inevitable.If I do this, then I get that.

It’s me-centered, isn’t it? And that’s the root problem. We don’t know what’ll happen tomorrow, but God does. We’ve got no clue what our career will do, what’ll happen to the economy, how our health will hold up.

But God knows.

And that’s where James’ “If the Lord wills” comes in. We just don’t have the ability to make plans about the future without God’s involvement, and that’s why we’ve got to submit it all to his will.

It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t plan—see the book of Proverbs, for example—but it means we ought to recognize God’s hand in overseeing everything we do.

So let’s plan what we hope to do this week, next month, or next year.

Let’s make vacation and retirement plans.

Let’s dream big and make bucket lists.

But let’s do it all . . . if the Lord wills. It’s all his future anyway.

Some communities become toxic, and you’ve probably been around one before.

Workplaces can digress into name-calling and back-biting. This group against that group. So-and-so’s mad at so-and-so.

Sound familiar?

It happens in schools across the world. Rumors—usually bad ones—spread like wildfire among teenagers. She’s mad at him, he’s mad at her, her clothes are out of style, and he’s got a weird haircut.

And on it goes.

People talk, and because we live in a fallen world, people talk badly, and they hurt each other with their words.

But there’s no place for it in the church.

James says this:

Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor? (James 4:11-12)

I sense some frustration in James here, don’t you? It seems like he wants to say something like, Don’t you guys know better than to slander one another? Aren’t you out of middle school? Most importantly, aren’t you followers of Jesus?

The problem with slander, James says, is that we set ourselves up as judges. We decide that we’re qualified to pass judgment on someone else’s behavior.

There’s a major problem with that, though—we’re not the judge. There’s only one Judge, and he hasn’t asked for our help.

Maybe you’re seldom guilty of this, but most of us struggle with it. Regardless, we should commit never to talk badly about another believer.

In your devotional time today, ask God to forgive you for the bad stuff you’ve said about other Christians, and ask him to put a gate over your mouth. It’s really simple—there’s no good reason for us Christians to talk badly about one another. We’re on the same side, and we’ve got more than enough to do to keep us busy without wasting time with such destructive habits.

James is venting a bit, isn’t he? Notice how he closes with this word of chastisement: “Who are you to judge your neighbor?”

Amen to that.

I can’t imagine what it’ll be like to be in God’s presence, but I’m pretty sure it’ll be the best thing about heaven.

What will it feel like?

What will he look like?

What will it be like?

I want that, but I’m not ready for it yet. People can’t be in the presence of God, not actually, not yet. We couldn’t survive it.

Whenever God revealed himself to people in the Bible—even in some kind of limited way—he spelled out the things they must do to be ready . . . and not die.

After the Israelites left Egypt, God met them at Sinai to give them his law, but he couldn’t just “come down” and talk to them. He told Moses to consecrate them for two days, let them wash their clothes, and be ready the third day. And then he put limits concerning how close they could come to the mountain where God would reveal himself. Get too close and die. Break through the barrier to try to get a glimpse of God . . . and die. It was a serious matter.

That’s the way it’s always been. We can’t come close to God because of our sins. We’ve got to be cleansed to enter God’s presence.

That’s why verses like this one are fascinating: “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you” (James 4:8a).

Us? Close to God? How?

Through Jesus, of course. He cleanses us, makes us holy, and grants us access to God.

Remember the temple’s veil being torn in two pieces during the crucifixion? That veil had always symbolized a barrier between sinful people and a holy God. When Jesus died, he tore the barrier down.

But what James puts right after he tells us to draw near to God is interesting: “Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you” (James 4:8b-10).

We still don’t come to God flippantly. He’s forgiven us, but that doesn’t mean we stop repenting. He’s declared us righteous, but we still acknowledge our sinfulness.

We’re reminded of that weekly when we come to the Lord’s Table. We don’t deserve to commune with Christ, and it’s incredible that he lets us sit and eat and drink with him.

But as we draw near to him we remember.

We remember the ways we’ve sinned against him. We remember the times we lost focus and said something wrong or did something sinful or thought something impure.

And so we draw near to God, but not without remembering what it cost to give us that access.

One day—when we receive our glorified bodies—we’ll draw near to him with no barriers at all. No sinful flesh, no broken vessel. We’ll bask in his immeasurable holiness and light.

That’s the day we’re all waiting for.

The devil.

Last week I read an article about atrocities committed in abortion facilities, and I hated him again for what he’s doing to the way we value life.

I see people redefining marriage and forgetting the God who created it, and I hate Satan for what he’s doing to our homes.

I see a headline about rape, child abuse, or murder, and I hate him for getting into our hearts.

I visit a cancer patient in the hospital, or comfort a grieving family at a graveside, and I hate him all the more for the tears he causes.

And, of course, I hate him for what he’s doing to you and me . . . for our constant struggles, for all the times he wins when he shouldn’t, for all the lies he convinces me to accept (even when I know better).

Please keep reading, because this story has a happy ending—all stories involving God do. But we tend to forget what Satan’s doing, and that’s exactly what he wants.

He’s working in you, especially if you’re trying hard to follow Christ.

He craves your kids, and he’d do anything to steal their hearts while they’re young.

He’s trying to drive a wedge between you and your spouse, because happy marriages kill his work.

He’s slithering between the pews at your church, hoping he can persuade everyone not to take this Jesus thing too seriously. He doesn’t mind church attendance, and singing and praying don’t really bother him either. Just don’t get on fire for the Lord—he hates that.

Oh yes, he’s working every day, so we’d better acknowledge it, but I love James’ simple answer:

Resist the devil, and he will flee from you (James 4:7).

We’ve got to remember that we don’t fight alone. He’s tough, but he’s nothing compare to who’s fighting for us.

John puts it like this: “he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4).

My encouragement for you today?

Resist him via the Spirit who lives within you. Satan’s a coward when he sees God, and he’ll run when he sees what the Spirit is doing within you.

Respect the devil because he’s tough. Hate him because he’s evil.

But don’t fear him, because he’s nothing compared to the One who was raised to destroy him.

“For we all stumble in many ways,” James wrote (3:2).

Amen to that. Most Christians I know are quite aware of the myriad ways they fall short.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but James is on a bit of a negative kick. He accuses his Christian readers of lusting, fighting, and coveting. He insinuates that they’re selfish, then—if that wasn’t enough—he calls them adulterers.

He doesn’t seem very happy, does he?

I’m glad there’s this next verse, because it brings us back to the place we all need to be:

But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6).

Isn’t that beautiful? He gives more grace.

We all stumble in many ways, but he gives more grace.

Every day we fall short, but he gives more grace.

We struggle and fall and get up and fall again, but he gives more grace.

It reminds me of what Paul wrote in Romans 5:20: “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.” All of us need a lot of that grace, don’t we? It’s good that it’s not a finite resource.

But notice the last part of James’ thought: “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

One thing will put a barrier between us and God’s grace, and that’s pride. Pride makes us think that we don’t need God, that we’re doing pretty well on our own. Pride trusts in our own righteousness, our own ability to be good, do good, and look good. Pride emphasizes self over God, works over grace, appearance over substance.

So in James’ statement there’s a tremendous promise, but also a warning.

God gives more grace to anyone willing to accept it—what an incredible blessing!

But he withholds it from the proud—nothing could be worse.

Today, let’s pray something like this:

Father, remove all traces of pride from our hearts and fill us with your humility. Though we’re not worthy, please give us more grace. Never oppose us. Never reject us. Keep us humble and within your will. We ask this through Jesus. Amen.