Be With Me: 7 Minutes of Biblical Wonder

If you have every had the joy of playing "Hide and Seek" with a child, there is a point to the game:  it is not TO BE HIDDEN, but rather TO BE FOUND.  The joy is to be found. The joy is to find.  Similarly, with God, we "draw near to God, and He will draw near to us." Or, "go find God and He'll go find us." Or, to our Hide and Seek picture, "Go find Him and He'll go find us."

God wants us to find Him. He wants us to engage in the delight of drawing near to find Him.  He wants us to be found by Him too.  God wants to draw near. May He find us humble and willing.  

God is in the "be found" business. We are in the business of the joy of finding Him.  It is not Hide and Seek, but BE FOUND! bewithme.us or [email protected] please subscribe and mostly just listen and consider these 7 minutes.

God could not be sweeter in our passage today.  Please listen.  You will hear the heart of God in His relationship to a people who are not the shiniest. 

Here is the prize: 

• He gives grace and then MORE grace (especially to the humble)
• He will exalt (though we have no business participating in this)
• He opposes pride (of course He does, it gets in the way of everything spiritual and good)
• He draws near (this killed me today.  Why does He bother? This is the bomb drop of the Old and New Testaments.  Who are we? What about my laughable 'drawing near to Him?')

Here is the path: Humility, subjection of ourselves, mourn, weep, wretchedness, repentance.

Come with me today.  Maybe you will see God.  I certainly caught a glimpse. bewithme.us

In a marriage relationship, both parties are to be fighting for the relationship; each giving all they've got and making the whole a priority.  Violating that commitment is known as adultery.

Similarly, we find that we are already "in a relationship" with God.  He's already started the marriage by indwelling His Spirit. And, He says that He continues to fight for our relationship.  Unfortunately, we are characterized poorly: adulterers; Violating the relationship in the most fundamental way. 

We are fighting for the wrong person.  Instead of fighting and acting and letting our words (prayers) reflect our pursuit of HIM, we are all about ME. We quarrel and fight, and become angry, and passionate for mostly just ME.  The most encouraging part of all this is to know the passion, the jealously, that He fights for me.  Join me for 7 minutes to consider this. Write at bewithme.us and subscribe to this podcast.

James is all about wisdom. It doesn't get to us by magic.  We must make a space for it.  We make mental and spiritual 'room' for it.  We must give preference to it.  This is the meekness of wisdom.  

Into this same space will charge jealousy and selfish-ambition.  We get to lean on either wisdom or jealousy.  We give preference to wisdom or ambition.

The consequences are definitive.  One results in vile practice, disorder and bad behavior.  The other results in peace, gentleness, mercy, non-partiality and reason.

Sounds like a big fight to me.  Likely there will be a bit of a battle as we make space for wisdom from above; as we give PREFERENCE to wisdom in our hearts.  bewithme.us.  

Your tongue is supposed to be used to speak blessing upon the Lord (worship) and to speak blessing upon His people (encouragement). It is small part of the body, but it packs a big punch.  In fact, it is the biggest punch of all.  This little rudder controls a whole lot of ship.  

If you think about why people have crashed their ship-of-life, you can be SURE that at least a part of it has been because they have not controlled their tongue. Their tongue has been unbridled and now they are reaping the consequences of this lack of oral control.

So who of us can demonstrate our correct view of people, and our correct view of God by the production of our mouths? This is a high calling.  It is my encouragement to you. Of course we will need help, but that is what walking with the Spirit means. The tongue can destroy the whole world in an out of control fire, or it can bless the Creator and His creatures.  Bewithme.us.

Thank you for making this podcast a 7 minute part of your day.  I hope you are blessed today, and that you'll come back for all the tomorrows that the Lord may give.

There is an appropriate, sobering warning given that NOT MANY OF YOU SHOULD BECOME TEACHERS. But, if teaching God's Word is an honored position and profession, why the caution?

We are asking teachers to do one of the hardest things in life. Can you bridle your anger? Can you put your finances under control? How about your zipper-life? Perhaps the hardest of all is YOUR TONGUE.  

And here, we are asking a few, not many, to regularly use this dangerous instrument as their part of ministry.  At any moment, not only your ignorance can be betrayed, but so can your character.  What if your words do not equal your walk? 

No wonder God has a stricter judgment for teachers.  I'm just glad this doesn't apply to podcasters!  Subscribe share, like, re-tweet, re-post, re-Linked In. bewithme.us

Salvation is not the result of works, but works are the result of salvation.

Salvation is not a result of work, but works are the result of faith.

Salvation is not the result of works, but works accompany faith.

James goes so far as to rock the 5 solas by saying: "Faith by itself, if it does not have works, is DEAD.  That is, it does not exist.  There is no such thing.

Because it is my podcast, I get to make up words. Here it is.  James is calling for In-ACTIONED faith.  He wants faith on the insides to come to the outsides.  Please listen and then make faith outside.  Thanks for a 7 minute listen.  bewithme.us

Today we move from talking a good game to living a good game.  Faith is expensive, inconvenient, challenging, demonstrable, external, exposing, definable, quantifiable, and we best be ready for it.

Faith alone does not exist says James. He'd want to put a small footnote on the  5 solas of the reformation: By grace alone, for the glory of God alone, by Scripture alone, in Christ alone BY FAITH ALONE.  
That is actually not what James says.  He says that faith by itself, IF IT DOES NOT HAVE WORKS, is dead.  Faith demonstrates itself externally.

Join for just 7 minutes while we throw some politicians under the bus.  We'll be looking hard at a practical faith. James tells us there is NO OTHER KIND.  bewithme.us to subscribe and tomorrows podcast will magically come to you.

James couldn't be stronger in his condemnation  of treating people badly based on external factors.  He uses the shabbily dressed poor as an example. It could have been dishonoring them based on country of origin, age, smoking, vaccine status, or anything else that really doesn't matter. It demonstrates a wrong view of people;a wrong view of God's activity; and even a wrong view of the character of God.  

He evokes the "royal law": Love your neighbor as yourself.  We all know we love ourselves plenty; even PREFERENTIALLY.  We show POSITIVE PREFERENCE to ourselves as an example.  We should be showing POSITIVE partiality to all those who are not-like-me. We should be treating the "not-MEs" as I treat ME.

Please listen 7 minutes as as you PREFERENTIALLY discriminate towards those who are not-you. Please then subscribe at bewithme.us and download on apple podcasts etc. 

If you are like me, you don't even know what PARTIALITY is.  James couldn't be stronger in his alarm at its presence in the church.  He calls it EVIL.  It is a BIG DEAL, and we don't even know it. We'd best figure this out.

Partiality, at its' presentation, is a negative discrimination based on some external, superficial and ultimately STUPID factors.  These could be previous religious status, zip code, country of origin, tenure in the church, age, job description or personal habits.  The one James choses to emphasize is difference in economic status.

What the BAD BEHAVIOR of partiality BETRAYS is 

• a wrong treatment of people based on
• a wrong view of people based on
• a wrong view of the ACTIVITIES of God based on
• a wrong view of the CHARACTER and PERSON of God

James doesn't like the behavior that he sees.  But what he REALLY doesn't like is the mental processes that allow it.  He is going to strike at them both. Please listen in for 7 minutes and then like, share, re-tweet, reply and subscribe at bewithme.us or [email protected]