Week 1: Fully Committed to God

Now, I love where this devotional went because it basically...

It says what I'm about to tell you, which is how many times have you read something in the Bible and been like, "Oh, this is just a greeting.

I'm just gonna skim over this part"? Okay, so here's why we don't wanna skim over this part.

It's so important.

So when you first look at that verse, you're like, "Okay, I get it.

Now let's get to, like, the meat of the book." But it's important to see who James is writing to.

Context is so important, or we can misread and misunderstand and misinterpret what the Bible's telling us to do.

So James is writing to believers.

I don't know if you have read the letters that Paul wrote to the churches.

Those, you know, he might be writing to Corinth or, you know, about a specific issue or the church at Ephesus or whatever.

But in this case, James is writing to believers who are scattered throughout the world.

So that means that everything he says, whether it's a command or encouragement or a challenge, is built on the assumption of an active faith.

So in other words, he's not telling people, "Here's how you can earn the grace or the favor of God." He's showing people who already believe that they're saved by the grace of Jesus, showing them how to live.

So he's showing them how to live because of grace they already have.

So, you know, again, these are short episodes, but basically, my first view of the Book of James as a young Christian was, "Oh, these are the things I need to do to be a good Christian," because I did not yet understand the context.

You know, in fact, [chuckles] I've been married to my husband for almost 20 years, and our first date when I was 19 years old, we were sitting in his blue Honda hatchback, and he was a pastor.

He still is a pastor.

And he asked me, like any pastor on a first date would ask, "What's your favorite book of the Bible?" [chuckles] And I said, "It's James." I was a longtime Christian school kid.

I had that ready, that answer ready for him.

And he said, "Why is that your favorite book of the Bible?" And I said, "Because it tells me what to do." And that makes me sad for 19-year-old me because the heart behind that was, "Okay, I want God to be happy with me.

I wanna be a good Christian, and James is super clear about how to live." And I was still immature enough in my faith that I thought, "Okay, I think I can do a pretty good job.

Maybe I can even be perfect for Jesus." [chuckles] I didn't, I didn't yet fully grasp what it meant to live in the joy and peace of knowing that it's not about my performance.

It's about Jesus' finished work on the cross.

So the context of James is we are reading these commands and these, these ways that we're supposed to live as people who already embrace the fact that our lives are about worshiping the Jesus who rescued us, who lived perfectly on our behalf because we couldn't do it.

So that's super important.