More Than Bread

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Yep, you're right. It's not even the book of James. But I felt like the message this weekend that I gave on Shadrach, Mesach and Abednego meeting God in the fire, was worth giving to more people. So rather than moving onto James 5, this one is going all the way back to the Old Testament book of Daniel. It's the message I gave this weekend. If you listened to it all ready last weekend, maybe God wants you to ponder it one more time. :)

Sometimes God saves us from the fire, sometimes He meets us in the fire. But we never go through the fire alone!

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Most of us think of sin as the bad things we do, but it’s also the good we fail to do. If you read this before you listen, we're focusing on James 4:17, but I'm going to take us in a little bit different direction. So before you listen, grab a rag, any kind of rag, just grab a rag. If you can't, then just imagine you have a rag in your hand.

I want us to practice saying this, "We all have rags." Go ahead, say it now. "We all have rags.  If you think about it, rags hold an interesting place in our lives...on the one hand they epitomize a lifestyle we seek to escape. We want to move from rags to riches. On the other hand, you may have grown up with a rag or two that at some point became very precious to you. What's that got to do with the good we fail to do?

Well if you listen, you'll figure that out, beause we all got rags. 

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Here at the end of James 4, to some degree James is echoing the words of Jesus in Matthew 6:19-34 and from all those words, the statement that stirs up my heart is this, "For where you treasure is, there your heart will be also."  For where your treasure is, your heart will follow. Isn’t that James concern as well? You are doing all this planning, trying to control all these variables, why? To gain treasure. But the problem with our treasures is that our treasures determine the placement of our hearts. 

So here's my question, "Where is your heart?"

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Remember from the last episode; there is a difference between making a judgment and passing judgment. We make judgments every day. Live is filled with judgements. If you live in my community and you want ice cream, it’s Dairy Queen, Myer's Dairy or the Creamery. Gotta Make a judgment. Some of you are thinking, Do not judge...eat-em all!"

Every day we make judgments, it’s part of life. Some of those judgments are moral judgments. But there's a difference between making a judgment and passing judgment. Passing judgment means you look beyond what a person says or does into their very heart as though you know them intimately and can judge them absolutely. But when we judge, we seperate, we isolate, and we lose our empathy. 

But Jesus says, "Not in my Kingdom!" 

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In many ways, James 4:11-12 and Jesus words in Matthew 7, about judging others are words that are so deeply needed today. In the Greek language the word used for judge, has within it the idea of seperation. When we sit in judgement of someone we seperate ourselves from them, and seperate them from our community. They become our untouchables. Does that sound familiar? Does it sound like something that might be happening in our communities right now?

Who are your untouchables?

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Remember James -- old camel knees -- so committed to prayer that he developed camel callouses on his knees.  His whole book is saturated with prayer, but here in chapter 4, he lets loose with some of the most important prayer-principles in the New Testament, specifically 3 rules of a great prayer life. In the last episode we focused on the first rule of prayer. You have to ask. 

In this episode it's, "Love God" and "Battle for Grace." 3 Rules of a great prayer life!

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For those of you getting tired of the first half of James 4, we’re getting close to moving on. But here’s what I’ve found throughout my time in the Word, sometimes we move on to new words too quick. Sometimes we need to let the Words of God soak, saturate and marinate. Sometimes we need to hold them up in the sonlight and look at them from a variety of perspectives like a diamond or a sculpture. Sometimes it takes more than one reading to glean all that we should glean on the first pass. And James 4 is one of those sometimes passages.

In this episode, we'll ponder James diagnostic question for an un-praying life. "You have not because you ask not." What is it that sometimes makes the prayer life so difficulty? I'll give you some diagnostic questions to dig into that personally.

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The last two episodes focused on James 4 have been challenge heavy. This one is encouragement heavy. Here is the simply message from God, that I think God wants you to hear. "I miss you." Do you believe God misses you? I think we have this idea that God is love so God has to love us. But I'm not sure he likes me. Miss me? Nah, with so many people in the world who love him deeper and follow him better than I do, He probably doesn't even notice my absence. But the capacity of his heart is off the charts and there's just something about love that desires to be with...

So what if God misses you?

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When I think of the state of the church of America, actually let me personalize it, when I think of the state of my own heart. Here is the thought that comes to mind. 
"It's worse than we think and it could be better than we can imagine." Some of you may not be ready to hear me say this, because it requires a softness of heart, an inclination of our souls to God. It requires a posture of surrender and brokenness and humility. It requires a choice to chase Christ with all our hearts. 

But if we are willing to do that...what is worse than we think can become better than we ever imagined. 

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Sometimes I look around me at the beauty of creation, family and friends around me, good things happening in people lives, and answers to prayer. In moments like that, do you know what's hard to believe? It's really hard to believe that we are living in a war zone. Every night before I go to bed, I google the war-news about Myanmar and the Ukraine. I don't have to imagine their war zone. But sitting in my office, it's hard to believe I'm in a battle. But that's the message of scripture. 

It's not a battle against people, that I'm talking about. It's a different kind of war. And sometimes the reason why our prayer life is anemic and our lifes are not thriving, is because we are fighting the wrong battle. What is your battle?