Kevin Taylor's Bible Study
Title:
The Book Of James, part 2
by Kevin Taylor
God bless all of you. This week we will be continuing our study of the book
of James. We took a short break because Mr Don Argent gave us a teaching,
and I pray you were blessed and encouraged by it. In part one of our study
we looked at chapter 1 v 1-18, which gives encouragement to the reader when
faced with trials and temptations. In part two we are going to take a look
at the rest of the first chapter, verses 19-27, the theme of the teaching
is, ‘Listening, Self control and Doing what the bible teaches’.
James
Chapter 1 v 19-27 “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. Therefore, get
rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent, and humbly accept
the word planted I you, which can save you.
Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it
says. Anyone who merely 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. 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. If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight
rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. Religion
that God our father accepts is this: to look after orphans and widows in
their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”
There are 201 words in the above bible reading, and there is a lot of guidance
and teaching in these verses, because of this we will be concentrating on
just a few points, however, don’t be surprised if the lord shows you additional
things as you study this portion of scripture. The first point is the command
to be “Slow to become angry.” My first pastor, Mr Malcolm Theobold used
to teach us that we should not make decisions when we are angry. If we do,
they will almost certainly be the wrong ones, because your decisions will
be based more on how you feel at that moment in time, rather than what the
Lord would have you do. If you are given to ‘quick temperedness’ then the
first thing to do is to acknowledge that this is wrong and that you do have
a problem in this area. Secondly, confess this to the Lord and ask him to
help you in this area. He will, but maybe not in the way you would think.
God knows what he is doing.
The second thing that jumps out of this passage to me is that we must be
‘doers’ of the word and not just ‘hearers’ of the word. We all need to get
onto the habit of remembering what God has told us, either through the bible
or through personal communication or whatever, if he has said something
to you, stick with it. God’s timing is not necessarily our timing. God is
into ‘marinating’ and we are into ‘microwaving’ so be patient, if god has
promised you something but it hasn’t come to pass yet, it will but in God’
time.
Until next time we meet, God bless you and have a super week. Love,
kev!
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