The Law of Liberty – EGP Blog post from April 8, 2006

James 1:19–27 ()

[19] Dear brothers and sisters, be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. [20] Your anger can never make things right in God’s sight. [21] So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the message God has planted in your hearts, for it is strong enough to save your souls. [22] And remember, it is a message to obey, not just to listen to. If you don’t obey, you are only fooling yourself. [23] For if you just listen and don’t obey, it is like looking at your face in a mirror but doing nothing to improve your appearance. [24] You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. [25] But if you keep looking steadily into God’s perfect law—the law that sets you free—and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it. [26] If you claim to be religious but don’t control your tongue, you are just fooling yourself, and your religion is worthless. [27] Pure and lasting religion in the sight of God our Father means that we must care for orphans and widows in their troubles, and refuse to let the world corrupt us.

James 2:8–13 ()

[8] Yes indeed, it is good when you truly obey our Lord’s royal command found in the Scriptures: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”ⓘ [9] But if you pay special attention to the rich, you are committing a sin, for you are guilty of breaking that law. [10] And the person who keeps all of the laws except one is as guilty as the person who has broken all of God’s laws. [11] For the same God who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.”ⓘ So if you murder someone, you have broken the entire law, even if you do not commit adultery. [12] So whenever you speak, or whatever you do, remember that you will be judged by the law of love, the law that set you free. [13] For there will be no mercy for you if you have not been merciful to others. But if you have been merciful, then God’s mercy toward you will win out over his judgment against you.

James 2:8 Lev 19:18.
James 2:11 Exod 20:13–14; Deut 5:17–18.

Response

  1. What we do is bears witness to what we believe. What would people say that you believe by how you live?
  2. Read . The love we express to others is a testimony of our dedication to Christ. With this in mind, would a stranger believe that you are a genuine Christian? Why or why not?
  3. basically says that we are to live our lives as though we’ll be judged by the measure of our love. How can we better express Christ’s love to this hurting world?

One More for Jesus

My father was a minister for over fifty years, serving mostly in small, rural churches. He was a simple preacher, but he was a man with a mission. His favorite activity was taking teams of volunteers overseas to build church buildings for small congregations. In his lifetime, Dad built over 150 churches around the world.

In 1999, my father died of cancer. In the final week of his life the disease kept him awake in a semi-conscious state nearly twenty-four hours a day. As he dreamed, he’d talk out loud about what he was dreaming. Sitting by his bedside, I learned a lot about my dad by just listening to his dreams. He relived one church building project after another.

One night near the end, while my wife, my niece, and I were by his side, Dad suddenly became very active and tried to get out of bed. Of course, he was too weak, and my wife insisted he lay back down. But he persisted in trying to get out of bed, so my wife finally asked, “Jimmy, what are you trying to do?” He replied, “Got to save one more for Jesus! Got to save one more for Jesus! Got to save one more for Jesus!” He began to repeat that phrase over and over.

During the next hour, he said the phrase probably a hundred times. “Got to save one more for Jesus!” As I sat by his bed with tears flowing down my cheeks, I bowed my head to thank God for my dad’s faith. At that moment, Dad reached out and placed his frail hand on my head and said, as if commissioning me, “Save one more for Jesus! Save one more for Jesus!”

I intend for that to be the theme of the rest of my life. I invite you to consider it as a focus for your life, too, because nothing will make a greater difference for eternity. If you want to be used by God, you must care about what God cares about; what He cares about most is the redemption of the people He made. He wants His lost children found! Nothing matters more to God; the Cross proves that. I pray that you will always be on the lookout to reach “one more for Jesus” so that when you stand before God one day, you can say, “Mission accomplished!”