Your attitude towards the visible helps you measure your status towards the invisible.

For the follower of Jesus Christ, our identity doesn’t come from our skin color, it comes from being a child of God. 

Our identity is in Christ first.

Principle#1: When we reach out, we have to seek to find common ground, just like Jesus.

Principle#2: Never let your created racial identity get in the way of God’s Plan to rescue and save this world.

Principle#3: Never let the popular cultural opinion get in the way of doing what God has called you to do.

Principle#4: Never let tradition, background, history and culture override your theology.

Don’t be so committed to your own race that you operate outside of your Christian faith.

Revelation 7:9 They came from every nation, tribe and people. That’s true no matter what language they spoke. “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne. Salvation also belongs to the Lamb.”

James 2:1 "My brothers and sisters, you are believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ. So treat everyone the same."

James 2:9 says “But you sin if you don’t treat everyone the same. The law judges you because you have broken it.”

Galatians 3:26

26 So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God by believing in Christ. 

27 This is because all of you who were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. You have put him on as if he were your clothes.

28 There is no Jew or Gentile. There is no slave or free person. There is no male or female. That’s because you are all one in Christ Jesus.

29 You who belong to Christ are Abraham’s seed. So you will receive what God has promised.

James 2:13 says “that if you don’t show mercy, you will not receive it”. I can also tell you this that if you don’t show grace, you will also not receive grace to live each day.

Don’t let anyone treat you poorly. Every follower of Jesus is the child of a KING. So treat every believer like the King’s kids.

God has established His church to establish the standard of God’s Kingdom – as His dominant cultural influencer.

James 1:2-8 – Here is what James is writing to the Christians:

My brothers and sisters, you will face all kinds of trouble. 

When you do, think of it as pure joy.

 3 Your faith will be tested.  You know that when this happens, it will produce in you the strength to continue.

 4 And you must allow this strength to finish its work.  Then you will be all you should be. 

You will have everything you need.  

5 If any of you needs wisdom, you should ask God for it. 

He will give it to you. God gives freely to everyone and doesn’t find fault. 6 But when you ask, you must believe. You must not doubt. 

That’s because a person who doubts is like a wave of the sea. The wind blows and tosses them around. 

7 They shouldn’t expect to receive anything from the Lord.

8 This kind of person can’t make up their mind. 

They can never decide what to do. 

James 3:17 But the wisdom that comes from heaven is pure. 

That’s the most important thing about it. And that’s not all. It also loves peace. 

It thinks about others. It obeys. It is full of mercy and good fruit. 

It is fair. 

It doesn’t pretend to be what it is not. 

Those who make peace plant it like a seed. They will harvest a crop of right living.

14 Is anyone among you sick?

So, verse 14 talks about someone who is almost ready to give up. What is the Bible telling them to do, here?

Then let that person call for the Elders of the church to pray over them.  And they are to pray for them.

In verse 13, you are praying for yourself, but in verse 14, the Elders of the church are praying for you because you need help. Because your prayers are not getting through because you don’t feel like praying anymore.

When life beats you down long enough and deep enough, the fact is that we get tired of dealing with God. Isn’t that true?

James is saying that at that point where you hit WEARINESS – the effects of SICKNESS, you need more than you! So he says, go to the elders of the church – that represent the spiritual leaders of the church to get support for a breakthrough that you haven’t been able to get on your own.

When you are getting ready to throw in the towel, you need some other people in your life who can cry out for you because you are too tired to cry out for yourself.

That is why every follower of Jesus Christ needs to be part of a local church or a fellowship – because when you can’t keep going on, you need someone to help you keep going on!

WE ARE NOT DESIGNED TO BE LONE RANGER CHRISTIANS!

So, there must be spiritual people who can carry you when you can’t carry yourself.

Reminds me of the story in Mark 2, the story of the paralyzed man that couldn’t get up. He simply couldn’t get up. He was laying there for along time and couldn’t get up.

But he had 4 of his homies – they came, they picked him up and took him to the house where Jesus was . They cut a hole in the roof and let him down in front of Jesus.

And then it says, “when Jesus saw THEIR faith, not the sick man’s faith – when Jesus saw the faith of the faith of the 4 brothers who picked the sick man up, Jesus healed the man!

The man couldn’t get up on his own but he had some people in his life who cared enough about him to reach over, pick up him, life him up, carve a hole out and carry him to Jesus and drop him down! And Jesus said, I am going to heal you because of them because you can’t get up on your own.

The truth is we all get tired and the fact is that we need each other!

James 5:13-16 gives us more clarity about prayer.

Let me try to first give you an understanding on the relationship between God’s Will and Prayer.

God has a conditional will and an unconditional will.

God’s Will is basically what He determines or decides to happen. God’s Will is executed or happens in one of two ways – it can happen unconditionally or conditionally.

God’s unconditional will is when He determines what will happen regardless or irrespective of what anyone else does or anyone else thinks.

Which means it is conditional on us or anyone else. It means that when God decides to do something, it’s gonna happen no matter what.

That is His unconditional Will.

But God’s conditional will is different. There are many things He has decided to NOT happen until He gets cooperation from earth.

There are many things that God has decided that He will not bring from Heaven into the earth’s history unless there is human cooperation with his desire and design.