Walk the Talk
Todays Reading: James Chapter 1
As we enter the heart of summer, I am reminded of the years of the past with the down home family reunions. Being from Texas, we would have big family reunions that would last for the entire weekend. The reunion would start with a gathering of relatives on Thursday evening. On the following day, we would have a fish fry that would be sponsored by a cousin who would have just caught the fish that morning. On Saturday, we would have the big gathering and barbeque, where you met family that you scarcely, if at all remembered. But this was the purpose of the gathering, to meet your family from two to three generation past, present, and future.
Some of my precious and memorable moments were the conversations that you would have traveling to the reunion or during the late nights around the fire or in your great-aunt’s living room or kitchen. These are the times you hear about your father’s youth or the cousins’ shenanigans. You also gain so much wisdom just by listening to your elders. For instance, here are some southern nuggets of wisdom: “Don’t let someone else pick your shade tree” and “Let’s sit down and chew the fat”. These are sayings that mean to choose your own way of living and being and let’s sit down and chat.
As we have traveled through our Biblejournal journey, we can see a little of the family reunion unfolding. Jesus, in all the gospels, is the gentle father who gives us advice and teachings in many forms: parables, examples, and direct action. Then we have the uncles: Peter, Paul, John, and James. Each of the uncles will give you different advice at different times and in their own fashion. Paul is the uncle that has traveled the world and has different experiences that will relate to everyone in their own specific way. Peter is the uncle that is calm and tells you the stories of times with Jesus and how things will be to come. Then we have Uncle James. He is the uncle that gives you the stories and then tells you the truth of the matter. He is the apostle that loves yet direct to the point. This is sometimes the favorite uncle because you always know what he is thinking. James is the uncle that forces us to “Walk to the talk”.
Everyone has the opportunity to grow and mature. Sometimes it is easy to comply with the rules and policies. At other times, it is harder to follow the rules to the law. James asks us a Christians to not only know God and Christ, but to actually live, as we love them. Throughout the book of James, he is reinforcing us to take deliberate and intentional actions to live our lives so that others may see God’s love in us.
A couple of nuggets that James gives are:
- Steadfastness: verse 1-4, 12
- The true essence of a person is not discovered without some adversity or trails. When we are in the midst of hard, difficult, and challenging times this is the opportunity that we should be thankful and in awe of God’s presence in our lives. It is once we have overcome that we are stronger and more capable of greater results.
- Ask God for Wisdom: verse 5
- God is a loving Father and will give freely all that he has, but we have to ask for the gift.He is ready to give wisdom, knowledge and peace when we ask it. We have been conditioned from the exit of Eden to shy away from God, but this is the time that he wants to bless us and we have to be sure of our relationship that he WANTS to bless us
- God is good and perfect and doesn’t want to tempt us : verse 17
- We as humans and Christians are fallible and will fall often. It is not that God wants us to fail, but the desire of our hearts sometimes quiets the voice of God. His presence is always there and he will give us an alternative whenever we are tempted, we just have to listen and be receptive.
- Quick, Slow, Slow: Verse 19
- This sounds like a dance routine, but it is the verse “Be QUICK to hear, SLOW to speak, SLOW to anger”.
- True Religion
- James puts the purest definition religion:
- James 1: 27: religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
- Doing good to those who are not able to provide for themselves is the Truest Religion
- James puts the purest definition religion:
May we blessed to listen and follow these recommendations from James to bring God’s grace and love to those we interact with. Amen