Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world (James 1:27).
Every man for himself.
I’m looking out for Number One.
What’s in it for me?
That’s the attitude of the world, Beloved. And, as you may have noticed, we live in the world.
When I was a kid, I remember that they used to issue Smog Alerts when the air pollution was particularly bad. On those days, just breathing the air around you was enough to make your lungs hurt. Heavy exercise could really do some damage to your innards. The attitude of the world gets into our system, like pollution on a smoggy day. What can we do about it?
We can use a filter.
God has given us his Word, and it makes a pretty awesome attitude filter. Breathing through the Word turns the smog of, “Look out for yourself,” into, “Look after the weak and helpless.”
If we want to live A Life Worthy, we need to use that filter constantly, to keep the pollution out. Kinda feels like an astronaut, wearing his spacesuit as he steps out onto the surface of an alien world.
Actually, that’s pretty accurate. After all, this world is not out home, is it?
If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight reign on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless (James 1:26).
What, is James saying I talk too much?
Probably, yeah.
It’s frightening to stop and consider how quickly one thoughtless, angry, gossipy, selfish, sinful word can undo the good you’ve accomplished. It rolls of the tongue so easily, and causes so much damage.
Challenge for Wednesday: Control your words. Don’t let what you say undo what you do.
I know it’s not easy, Beloved—that’s why it’s a Challenge, not a Fluffy Rah Rah.
But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does. (James 1:25).
You can’t just glance at the Word.
You can’t skim it
or skip through it
or toy with it.
It is not a book for light reading and coffee table perusing.
It takes work and demands your respect.
My favorite novel of all time is A Tale of Two Cities. I very rarely read it. I’m not a masochist. It’s simply that reading the book is a heavy investment. It takes time and energy and a sweaty cognitive brow.
And it’s totally worth it.
How much more so the Word of God that gives freedom?
I won’t deny it—the Bible is a tough read. Sure, there are easy parts. The bits where he tells me I’m his friend and his son and his treasure and that he loves me and will never leave me—those I can read all day.
The parts where he points out my propensity for fearing and falling and failing…those I could just as soon skip.
Except I can’t.
If I’m ever going to be the man that he seems to think I can be, I have to do more than skim—I must stare intently. I have to do more than read—I must do what it says.
What about you, Beloved? Will you skim today, or will you spend the sweat to dig deep and do?
Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like (James 1:23-24).
The mirror doesn’t lie.
Oh, you might lie to yourself about what you see in the mirror, but the glass always plays it straight.
Every wrinkle, every pimple—right there on display.
By the way, I find it most inappropriate that wrinkles have appeared on my face before the pimples have retired. But that’s another story.
Scripture acts like a mirror for your soul. If you read it honestly and prayerfully, it will show you who you are.
Every pimple.
Every wrinkle.
If I look in the mirror tomorrow morning and see something disgusting hanging from my nose, and I go off to work without removing it, what do you think will happen when I walk into my classroom?
Yep…and I’ll deserve it, too.
If I look in the Word and see something disgusting hanging from my heart, and I go off into my day without removing it…
Yep…
It’s Monday, Beloved. Start the week with a good look in the mirror.
My daughter and I are in a production of Seussical the Musical at LifeHouse, our local community theater and secondary—some weeks primary—home.
Another open letter to my beautiful girl…
Hey, Lovely
One of the many ways that you make my life rich is that you nudge me to do things that I would not normally do.
Case in point: Seussical the Musical.
I mean, seriously—a musical based on fever-induced hallucinations? Why?
Well, now I know. Thanks for the nudge, Kiddo.
I’ve said before that every great story is a reflection of the Great Story of God’s love for us. That holds true here. If you keep your eyes and heart open, you can learn great truths, even from an elephant and a few birds.
Man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart (1 Samuel 16:7).
Gertrude is a bird in love with an elephant. This fact presents more problems than we have space to deal with here, so let’s just focus on what she sees as the biggest issue—he doesn’t notice her. Gertrude assumes that Horton is not interested because of her looks (it never seems to occur to her that he might, I don’t know, be more interested in she-elephants). As you know, Gertrude is a rather plain-looking little bird with “A one-feather tail.” She decides that she needs a little help, so she follows the advice of Mayzie, a beautiful but ultimately empty creature. Mayzie sends Gertrude to a doctor, where the glamor, attention, and, ultimately love that she craves is “All for sale.” Convinced that this will win her Horton’s attention, Gertrude gets the Seuss version of plastic surgery to augment her assets.
She buys the lie—and nearly ruins everything.
Ding ding ding goes the irony bell. Gertrude is not interested in Horton because of his looks. She tells us that she fell for him when she noticed his, “kind and powerful heart.” And yet she assumes that Horton will only be interested in her if she looks the right way.
Hmmm…
You see—oh, please tell me you see this—Gertrude’s new tail wasn’t really Gertrude at all. Sure it looked good, but it was too big to allow her to fly. It took away more than it gave. The price Gertrude paid for beauty was a loss of her identity. She became “beautiful” in the eyes of the world, but she was no longer Gertrude.
Baby Girl, don’t ever fall into the lie of thinking that you have to be something else in order to be attractive. First of all, if you go that route, you will never be satisfied. If you think thin is pretty, you’ll never be thin enough. If you think blonde is pretty—though you know I prefer redheads—there will never be hair color enough. If you think taller, or shorter, is what you need, there will never be heels high enough or flats flat enough to make you who you think you need to be.
Which brings me to the Second of all. You are hand-formed by the God of the Universe, and he has made you to be exactly the girl you are. Your size, your shape, your skin, your hair, your eyes, were all designed by the One who loves you most and knows you best. You are perfect in his sight—why mess with perfection? If you had moles the size of cows or an extra nostril—OK, we might get those fixed, but you see where I’m going here.
Now, am I saying that you can’t use a little makeup, or wear pretty clothes? Am I saying that girls who are not blessed with red hair can’t try a little color, just for fun? No. But be aware of why you make…augmentations.
Is it because it makes you feel pretty, and it’s fun to look your best? Great.
Is it because maybe this dress, these shoes, this makeup, this diet, will get you the attention you desperately crave?
Dangerous.
Color me Crazy-Dad, but today’s diet leads to tomorrow’s eating disorder, if it’s done for the wrong reasons. Today’s makeup becomes tomorrow’s plastic surgery. Today’s loss of self will be tomorrow’s despair.
Horton, of course, finally notices Gertrude. However, it doesn’t happen until after she has ditched the new tail—a painful process—and returned to being herself. It’s the inner person—brave, selfless, giving—that wins the pachyderm’s passionate praise.
That’s the last thing I want to point out to you today. Horton sees the real Gertrude—it takes a little while, but he sees her—and he loves her. He’s not concerned with what she “lacks.” He’s not concerned with how she looks. He loves her heart.
Hear me, Daughter of My Heart. If you ever feel pressured to change who you are for the love of a man, then he is not the man for you. The man who tries to change you into someone else is not worth having. Bring him to me, and I will teach him to look at a person’s insides…starting with his own.
The man worth having will be looking for what is in your heart. He will see you as Christ sees you, and love you as Christ loves you. Find that man, and bring him to me…and I’ll let you know.
My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. (James 1:9-20).
People bug me.
I may have mentioned that before. It’s still true.
People bug me because (present company excepted) they can be so idiotic, and they say things that are foolish and untrue and just plain dumb and I feel honor bound to point out their idiocy and so I speak out and set them straight and then sometimes I find out that what I thought they were saying isn’t what they were trying to say at all and I never let them finish their thought I just jumped to conclusions and blew up and made the whole situation awful and then I have to apologize and that bugs me.
James seems to think that the above scenario does not bring about righteousness.
James is probably correct.
I had a choir director once who instructed us to, “Listen louder than you sing.” His point was that, if you can’t hear what’s going on around you, you can’t blend, you can’t make music, you can only create dissonance. The same appears to be true about life.
Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. (James 1:17).
He wants good things for you.
He has given good things to you.
I’m going to let you in on a little secret, Beloved.
Sometimes I doubt God.
Oh, I don’t doubt that he’s there, or that he’s Almighty God. I don’t doubt the truth of the Resurrection or that he’s coming back for us one day.
It’s just that, after so many years of following him, there are still moments when, in the secret places of my heart, I doubt that he loves me.
I mean, why would he?
Now, I know that you’re way past all that nonsense, and your faith is unshakeable. But, just for kicks, let me tell you what I do when moods of doubt take hold of me.
I count my blessings.
Yes, it sounds trite, but I’m telling you it works. Stay with me here. This verse tells us that every good gift is from God, right? And people give gifts to those they love, right? And God is not fickle, loving one minute and hating the next—if he loves, he loves, right?
So, as I count the good things in my life, I can take each one as tangible proof of his love.
And there really are so many good things.
When I start counting, I invariably come around to counting the people I love. That’s when I stop. See, when I consider all the hearts I hold in mine, and I think that each of them is a sign of God’s love for me, my doubts stutter and go silent.
Anyway, that’s probably just me. But, as you go through your day, take a moment or two or twenty and think about the great gifts that are yours.
The brother in humble circumstances ought to take pride in his high position(James 1:9).
Who do you think you are?
Do you think you’re kind of a nuthinburger, with a dead-end job, an empty bank account, a lonely heart, and little to offer the world?
Interesting. I know that feeling. May I even suggest that, in the eyes of the world, it may be fairly accurate?
In the eyes of the world.
But, since when do we care about the eyes of the world, Beloved?
Let me remind you of something. If you belong to Christ, then you are a child of the Lord of Everything. You are royalty of the highest order.
Your job? King’s Ambassador.
Your wealth? The riches of Heaven.
Your heart? Loved to distraction by the Author of Love, the one who thought up the very idea of you, the one who knows everything there is to know about you, the one who died so that you can be together forever.
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world (James 1:27).
My daughter and I are in a production of