Tag: james

A Humble Posture

Meditation Thought: “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble… humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you.” (James 4:6 & 10)

Do not be a rebellious child, opposing the will of your Father, who has your best interest at heart, and who has infinitely greater wisdom and knowledge than do you.

Do you understand that for you to be proud is for you to rebel against your Father, and to distort the personality that is to be true to His image?

When you approach life – spirit life or physical life – with an attitude of humility – which is an attitude of being open to learn, of accepting the rights of others as equal to your own – and then choose to give them more rights than your own out of love, because you are the child of Love and you have come to know that if you give in love, you receive in love plus interest.

At first it appears a sacrifice to be humble – that you are giving up position, or are putting yourself down, not giving credit for your assets.

But these are not the attributes of true humility: true humility is the recognition of the fact that you are the child, and the Father is the Father, that He loves His other children as He loves you, and He desires good for all of you. He desires you love each other as He loves you, and He desires that you seek to encourage and uplift each other as He does His transforming works, bringing all to maturity under His teaching.

It is right to be proud of being the child of God; that is having true position. But humility is expressed when you recognize that this position is not of your own doing, but an act of loving grace from your Father.

To seek to be the very best you can be, as a unique child of the most powerful Force in the universe is to realize that, though the Father grants you many privileges, they are gifts to you, and not the results of your won creating, your own power.

So long as you seek to receive the gifts your Father delights in giving you in an attitude of gratitude and an eagerness to use the gifts as He intends them to be used for good, then you remain in an humble posture, and a flexible posture in which the Father is able to teach you and guide you effectively.

If you begin to delude yourself that the privileges are yours because you are so great within yourself that they are your “due” – and you take them for granted, and give no thanks for them – then you have become proud, and your Father needs to withhold the privileges in order for you to once again come into the proper attitude which is pleasing to Him and which is for your own good.

A Joyful Harvest Indeed!

Meditation Thought: “No human being can tame the tongue.” (James 3:8)

The tongue is tamed only by the Spirit – and an untamed tongue causes all kinds of mischief, even disasters.

The tongue is so powerful because it is the expression of the innermost thoughts. Our reactions to each other’s influence are more often a result of the working of the tongue than anything else. Thus the tongue holds the power to encourage, to commend, to give delight, to cause joy and laughter – or to condemn others to discouragement, guilt, resentment, bitterness.

Without the indwelling Spirit in control of our tongue, it can run on rampages, destroying everything in its path.

But the Spirit-controlled tongue produces the fruits of the Spirit – a joyful harvest indeed!

Mercy Triumphs

Meditation Thought: “Mercy triumphs over judgment.” (James 2:13)

“Mercy triumphs over judgment.” To triumph is to overcome completely, to be proved superior to that which did not triumph. Our God, being a merciful God – to the point of sacrificing Himself for us – is the crucial difference between Him and any other “gods” perceived by man.

We are mad in His image, and when true to that image, then we are merciful also.

Only when we come to trust God’s Word and Spirit enough to test His teaching as actual experiments in the course of our lives do we demonstrate the truth of His principles. And we cannot judge the interim results as the final outcome of the experiment without reaching false conclusions.

This is especially true in the principle of mercy triumphing over judgment. The results of judgment are perceived by the mind, and may or may not set in motion further thoughts which set in motion further deeds affecting the future.

But the results of mercy affect the heart – the emotions, the spirit – and these too affect the mind, but they have such power that they do affect the future.

To be judged – even fairly, we accept as our “due”, and are satisfied that the situation has come to a conclusion.

But to receive mercy – an undeserved, unearned pardon – a release from even the need for judgment – sets us free without even the stress of the proving of our case.

We are so accustomed to needing to justify ourselves to the world, that the unexpected removal of the need for justification sets us off balance – and the strangeness of our position causes us to think actively about the whole situation from a new perspective: this is the reason that mercy triumphs over judgment. It causes new awareness of love – and any new awareness of love is also leading to an awareness of Him who is Love: the greater the awareness of Him Who is Love, the greater the prospects of “miracles” – of healing actions. And this is the demonstration of the triumph of mercy over judgment.

Imprisoned in the dark and gloom
of the world of your cocoon
You did not know outside that space
Light and color,
Sound and purest air
Awaited for you to recognize
You need not spend forever
Where you were.

Time and the gentle touch
of your Creator’s sign
Reveal to you the purpose of your birth:
Not to stay in darkness,
confined in little space –
But to grow, develop wings,
and using the efforts of your faith
To burst out into the Kingdom –
To explore its beauty in an ecstasy
Of soaring, seeking, discovering
That purpose for which you were born –
Though in darkness you knew not why
You struggled, sought,
The perseverance against the confines of your tomb
Conquered the seemingly impenetrable mass
And glorious light of day
Greet you with welcome;
At last you emerge into your proper home.

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