Living Faith | December 6, 2020
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James 4:7-17
7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
11 Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. 12 There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?
13 Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit"-- 14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that." 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. 17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.
Talk Sheet Questions
Compare and contrast how you relate to God and how you relate to the devil? (7-8)
Do you think you really need to get upset about pride like James suggests in verses 8-9? Is it okay to be just a little bit sorry? Explain.
What would be some examples of “speaking evil against one another?” What makes it such a serious problem?
Are verses 13-17 against making money? Are they against making plans? Explain. What are they against
So far in the book of James, what constitutes the good someone might fail to do? (17)
Prayer
Pray that we would be humble in the way we relate to God, to our brothers and sisters, and to our plans.