James 2:8-13

⁸If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right. ⁹But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. ¹⁰For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. ¹¹For he who said, “You shall not commit adultery,” also said, “You shall not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker.

¹²Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, ¹³because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

Gallivanting

Once upon a time, there were two exceptionally bright students; they could get high grades easily during exams. Classroom activities cannot contain their extra creative mindset so, they ventured on youthful escapades. They would cut classes and went gallivanting wherever their feet brought them. They were good friends. Several years later, they have their own family, and had not heard from each other since.

One day, they met again; they shared about life experiences, career and family. One of them was economically stable while the other lived in hand-to-mouth existence. Their meeting was supposed to be grand reunion for both of them, but the person who was economically stable had become cautious and distant. The other person sensed that their friendship has cooled off and departed confused that friendship cannot last longer.

Have you ever had good friends in your teenage years? Would you conclude that your friendship is still strong as before? Yes? Well, you are blessed, if your friendship remains strong. Listen: When you become successful in your career, and you prospered, don’t forget that, in some ways or another, your good friends were also essential parts of your life journey. Cherish your friends who stick closer than a brother or sister.

Financial prosperity can attract more friends and even relatives, but God would bless much more the person who is merciful. Mercy is triumphant virtue. Do you know someone who has lost friends when they become financially successful? Do you know someone who has no close friends and shunned by relatives because of poverty?

King Solomon was richest king in the entire history of Israel. He may have been very sensitive and closely observed it intentionally what he declared in Proverbs 19:7.

⁷The poor are shunned by all their relatives— how much more do their friends avoid them! Though the poor pursue them with pleading, they are nowhere to be found.

Wealth is very essential to life journey and success. Some people have financial wisdom while others have no idea how to make much money. Money is useful, but it is not the solution to every problem. Just search online. Rich people have difficult problems also.

Reflect on this: After you trusted Jesus Christ as Lord, have you ever experienced life in its fullness? Are you satisfied with your life, right now? Try to examine yourself, soul, heart, and mind. What do you still wish to achieve or attain in your lifetime?

When you sincerely trusted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, did your life change? Were you financially much better or worse? If you consider that your lifestyle had not changed yet, pray for increase of trust and faithful obedience to the Lord.

Can you readily accept what it advised in Deuteronomy 8:18, ¹⁸Remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth.

Friends: By faith, we can trust that the word of God is real and true. But, if you sense a hint of doubt that God can give you ability and wisdom to produce wealth, pray for stronger faith in him. Faithful obedience to his instructions practically exhibits faith in God. Pray that Christ helps you follow godly lifestyle. When he is actively at work in us, we can gladly faithfully obey God. Well, how can we personally show love for God?

1. Show

⁸If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right. ⁹But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. 

Believers of Christ are expected not to show favoritism. It’s not simply implied but clearly stated that, if we show favoritism, we sin and considered law breakers in the eyes of God. So, “to love neighbors as ourselves,” we do not discriminate, no prejudice. Instead, we should show mercy to those in need. Yet, we experienced firsthand that to love every person around us is very challenging and difficult. How can we love our neighbors as ourselves? It’s very tough command!

True! Our Lord Jesus Christ declared the greatest and second greatest command of God in Mark 12:30-31, ³⁰Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ ³¹The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

Reflect on these: Can you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength? Can you love your neighbor as yourself? Why is it so difficult to perfectly obey these two great commands of God?

It’s because these royal laws come from our perfect God, and not from imperfect human outlook or opinion. The perfect laws of perfect God expose human limitation and imperfection. Since we are not perfect and limited, we can never by human effort obey godly commands perfectly. For sure, God knows that we cannot obey him perfectly.

Why did God give perfect commands that he knows we can never perfectly obey?

God perfectly knows the best lifestyle we can ever experience. Godly commands are instructions of godly lifestyle for believers. Can you believe that? So, how can we perfectly obey godly commands if godly standard is perfect and flawless, and we are not?

We can obey godly commands only when we seek godly help; and, that is why we accept Jesus Christ as Lord and depend upon him to empower us perfectly obey God.

Zacchaeus

Let’s learn from a believer who has physical limitation. It stated in Luke 19:2-10,

 ²Zacchaeus was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. ³He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd. ⁴So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.

 ⁵When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” ⁶So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly. ⁷All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.” ⁸But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.” ⁹Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. ¹⁰ For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

Imagine that! Zacchaeus was short, but he did his best to see Jesus. Many who followed Jesus were taller than Zacchaeus, but the effort made by Zacchaeus practically showed his earnest desire to see and know Jesus. Zacchaeus gladly welcomed Jesus into his home; it implied that he believed in Jesus. There’s practical transformation in his life as proof of his faith and Christ declared salvation to him and his household.

Zacchaeus had limitation; he’s short. We’re also short of the perfect standards of God, but once we gladly welcomed Jesus into our life, he transformed us. Our human instinct is never godly. We must rely upon Jesus Christ to help us follow godly lifestyle.

Zacchaeus declared before Christ to share his wealth to the poor as practical proof of transformation in his life; and, he promised to pay four times, if ever he had debts.

Let’s reflect! What have I done practically as proof of transformation in my life? Do I love my neighbors and not show favoritism; have I stumbled and disobeyed God?

2. Stumble

¹⁰For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. ¹¹For he who said, “You shall not commit adultery,” also said, “You shall not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker.

Can you strongly accept that God knows what is harmful to us? Can you strongly accept that what he forbids us to do is useless, harmful and not beneficial to us as well?

Godly lifestyle leads to fullness of life; and when we follow them, we discover and experience the fullness of life that Jesus Christ has promised to obedient believers.

Medieval scholars have estimated that, there are, at least, 613 laws of God in the Old Testament. Originally, the commandments of God were given to the Israelites.

And, Bible scholars suggested that when the Book of James mentioned about the whole law and quoted some godly laws from the Ten Commandments, it implied that Christians with Jewish background were the original recipients of the Book of James. Christians with Jewish background were familiar with the Ten Commandments while Christians with Gentile background should read, know and learn from it also.

We have to familiarize ourselves with the commands of God for us to practically know if we really are following Christ as Lord or not; as Christ empowers us, we follow godly lifestyle. All of us have our share of guilt. But when by faith, we believe that the Lord took all our sins and crucified them with Christ and the blood of Christ, shed on the cross, washed away our sins, we have become perfectly clean in the eyes of God.

That is what we believe when we personally accept Jesus Christ as our Savior.

Do you believe it? Are you confident that Christ has washed your sins away?

What practical proof can we personally exhibit that we accepted Christ as Lord?

With the help and guidance of the Holy Spirit of Christ, we follow godly lifestyle acceptable to God – that is when Christ performs his lordship over our life as our master. It is very necessary to be filled and empowered by the Holy Spirit of God always, so that we should not rely upon our limited human effort that may cause us to stumble.

Listen: Even if we can combine together all human talents, initiatives and efforts, we can never perfectly obey godly commands. It’s impossible for imperfect human, like me, to be perfect on our own effort! Can you accept it? What’s the matter with us?

We should keep in mind what it says in Isaiah 64:6, ⁶All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.

Goodness and kindness that originated from our human initiatives are considered dirty in the eyes of God, why? Sinfulness had polluted everything in us. Yet we are expected to love others! What shall we follow to have godly lifestyle?

Haircut

Have you ever cut your hair? Some of you do.

Many years ago, I started cutting my own hair at my own style. And of course, it took many years of practice to have satisfactory presentable haircut. And, I have to use two mirrors when cutting my hair. With mirror in front and mirror at the back, I cut my hair as presentable as I could.

Similarly, we try our best effort to be satisfactory presentable to God; godly commands are mirrors, for us to check if our lifestyle is satisfactory presentable to God.

Of course, we cannot become righteous by obeying the laws of God. We become righteous before God, and we want to follow godly lifestyle as prescribed in his laws only when we follow Jesus Christ as our Lord and seek his Holy Spirit to fill and empower us.

Apostle Paul had testified of his personal experience in Philippians 3:9, ⁹not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness  that comes from God on the basis of faith.

Apostle Paul was a former Pharisee. Based on the law, he was faultless. His righteousness by obeying the law is not the kind of godly righteousness acceptable to God. Righteous lifestyle as result of faith in Christ is what God accepts.

Personal transformation to godly righteousness is very practical proof of active faith in Christ. With the help and empowerment of the Holy Spirit, we follow godly lifestyle of righteousness specified in the perfect commands of God.

Just as Apostle Paul had testified, we also cannot become righteous by obeying the law. Godly righteousness is a practical result of faith in Christ. When the Holy Spirit of Christ empowers us, we gladly obey him. The way we speak and act will be evaluated during the Judgment Day, if we trusted and followed Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.

3. Speak

¹²Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, ¹³because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment. 

We can perfectly obey the laws of God only when we are transformed by Christ.

As believers, God expects us to rely upon Jesus Christ and follow godly lifestyle. We are free to do anything beneficial us. But, everything we do, choose or decide will be tested and examined at the Judgment Day. Godly commands defines lifestyle that God accepts.

Christ is coming sooner; so, let’s use our time, effort and resources wisely.

Pray that the Lord helps you identify a potential disciple whom you may spend sufficient time and effort. Don’t spread yourself too thin to maximize greater result.

Your mercy on your self is your basis to show mercy on others.

Get Some Rest

It is advisable to be concerned of personal needs also. It says in Mark 6:31-34, ³¹Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, Jesus said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.” ³²So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place. 

Food and rest are necessities in life. Our choice of food and sufficiency of rest should exhibit love for ourselves. The Lord commanded us to love neighbors as ourselves. Meaning: Love of neighbor acceptable to God is based on how much we love ourselves.

The manner you show mercy to your self is your basis of showing mercy to others. Mercy is triumphant virtue.

When Christ said, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest,” the Lord was very concerned of his physical necessities and the wellbeing of his disciples. The Lord knows our necessities; he wants to bless us so that we become blessing to others.

His godly commands are instruction for obedient believers to be blessed. He said in Luke 11:28, ²⁸“Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.”

The Spirit of the Lord inspired King David when he declared in Psalm 119:1-2, ¹Blessed are those whose ways are blameless, who walk according to the law of the Lord. ²Blessed are those who keep his statutes and seek him with all their heart.

What personal instruction have you heard from God, lately? Pray fervently and sincerely that God will make his instruction very clear for you to follow. Pray for that he empowers you to confidently trust that he will bless you when you obey him.

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