May 27, 2019

HUMILITY

James 4:10

Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.

Personal Challenge

God's way of doing things is so contrary to how the world does things. In the world, if I am to get ahead, or be lifted up, I have to be aggressive, self-seeking, and constantly showing that I am better than those around me. This has become so prevalent in the last few years in our American culture. In God's Kingdom, I will be lifted up when I humble myself before Him and my fellow human being. In our liturgy of the Orthodox church, we are constantly singing. "Lord, have mercy!" We do this because we know that when we come into the presence of our God, we are not worthy and should be falling on our face before Him. Our God cannot lift us up if we have not first fallen down before Him. Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy!

May 26, 2019

DOING CHRISTIANITY

James 4:8-9

Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.

Personal Challenge

James continues to press us to be doers in our Christian lives and to not just be people that talk about being Christians. Draw near, cleanse, purify, lament, mourn, and weep are all active verbs and things that we are told to do in order to demonstrate that we are Christians. We must practice what we believe. Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner!

May 25, 2019

Saint of the Week

St. Nikolai Velimirovich

May 24, 2019

ENMITY WITH GOD

James 4:1-7

Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”? But He gives more grace. Therefore He says:

“God resists the proud,
But gives grace to the humble.”

Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

Personal challenge

"The Spirit who dwells within us yearns jealously." What in the world does this mean? When we gave our lives to Christ and began our journey to theosis, to be like Him, we were filled by the Holy Spirit. He dwells within us. It is from within us that the Holy Spirit yearns for us to live a life separated from this temporal world and united with God in the spiritual world. This is a jealous yearning. But what do we do instead? We live proud lives rather than humble, submissive to God lives. We seek after our own desires, passions, and pleasures. We covet the things of this world. It is this lifestyle, these decisions to live no differently than the rest of the world who have not given their lives to the world, that puts us at enmity with God. We wonder why our prayers are not answered. We wonder why we do not sense God's presence in our lives. We wonder why our life is no different than the lives of everyone else. It is because we are at war with that very Spirit that lives within us and that war spills over to those around us. Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy!

May 23, 2019

LIVING AT PEACE

James 3:17-18

But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

Encouraging Words

If we are pursuing Christ and growing in righteousness then we will be people who sow the seeds of peace and make peace wherever we go. This means that we do not engage in divisiveness. We are not at odds with those who think differently, whether politically, religiously, socially, or any other way. How can we get to this place? By receiving God's wisdom from above, He gives us that wisdom and it is pure, peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner!

May 22, 2019

HEAVENLY WISDOM

James 3:14-16

But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic. For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there.

Personal challenge

James moves on from teaching us that in order for our faith to be alive, we must be doing godly works, to this warning of how we must be careful of how we do Gods' works. It is so easy for us to get wrapped up in all that we are learning about God and become puffed up and self-seeking in our endeavors. When we go down this path we become envious of others and try to project our own wisdom and actions. By doing this then we are moving away from God not towards Him. We must stay humble and centered in God for our works to be able to glorify Him. Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy!

May 21, 2019

SYNERGY OF FAITH AND WORKS

James 2:26

For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

Personal challenge

James spends a lot of his letter talking about the synergistic relationship between faith and works. This was important to him. As a reminder, who was this James? He was a half-brother to Jesus and one of His Apostles. He knew Jesus personally, his entire life. So, I am willing to bet that faith-driven works was also important to Jesus. The challenge for us in this is to hold on tight to the faith we are given by the Holy Spirit and to roll up our sleeves and put that faith to work. We are to be building His Kingdom, all of the time, not just on Sundays. we are to be loving our neighbor, all of the time, and all of our neighbors, all of the time. Our faith and works should be so tightly intertwined that they cannot be separated. Glory be to God!

May 20, 2019

EVEN THE DEMONS BELIEVE

James 2:19-20

You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble! But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?

Personal Challenge

It is one thing to say that we believe in someone or something but is an entirely different thing to put our all into that which we have put our belief in and act upon it. God is who we put our belief. God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is the object of our faith and belief as well as the source of that faith and belief. However, if we stop there, then we are no different than the demons who also believe in God, and tremble in that belief. If we do not act upon that belief, become new and changed people in Christ, then that belief, that faith, is a dead faith. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner!

May 19, 2019

ALIVE OR DEAD

James 2:17

Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

Personal challenge

I think it would be safe to say that no one wants to be dead. We all desire to be alive, vibrantly alive. If this is the case, then why do we so often choose to let our faith in God die a slow miserable death? We can live our lives saying that we believe in God, that we have faith in Him, and yet even the demons believe in God. The key to our journey to theosis is, what do we do with our faith. As James reminds us, if we do not act upon our faith and do things for Christ, then that faith is dead. Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy!

May 18, 2019

Saint of the Week

St. Antony the Great

May 17, 2019

FAITH-BASED WORKS

James 2:14-16

What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit?

Personal challenge

The epistles are pretty clear in their teachings, we must have godly works accompany our faith if we desire to be counted as children of God. Faith is not just some mental exercise whereby we proclaim our trust in God. This is fundamental, but without following that faith with works that glorify God, then our faith becomes stillborn. Lord, have mercy?

May 16, 2019

NO PARTIALITY

James 2:1-4

My brethren, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with partiality. For if there should come into your assembly a man with gold rings, in fine apparel, and there should also come in a poor man in filthy clothes, and you pay attention to the one wearing the fine clothes and say to him, “You sit here in a good place,” and say to the poor man, “You stand there,” or, “Sit here at my footstool,” have you not shown partiality among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?

Personal Challenge
There is only one principle that should drive the life and actions of every Christian. It is LOVE! This love started with God, flowed through Jesus Christ, and should be exhibited in our every thought, word, or deed. In this passage, James tells us that there is no room for partiality in the hearts and minds of a committed Christian. We are to treat EVERY human being as a special person, a child of God. It does not matter if they are rich or poor; black, white, brown, yellow, or any other color; male or female, adult or child; Republican or Democrats; American, immigrant, or even illegal alien. Every human being is created in the image of God and we are commanded to love them as we love our families or ourselves. If all professing Christians were to do this today, our world would be changed in an instance. What is stopping us? Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner and forgive me for the partiality in my life.

May 15, 2019

BE A DOER

James 1:22-25

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.

Personal Challenge

One area of Christian doctrine that often generates great and vigorous, sometimes vehement debate, is the area of works. There are some faith practices that will go to the extreme of belittling or even trying to eliminate recognition of any works for fear that someone might think they are earning their way into Heaven. I have been on the receiving end of this teaching multiple times. In Orthodoxy, we believe that there is nothing that we can do on our own to earn salvation. Salvation only comes from the mercy of God through the works of His son, Jesus Christ. However, we do agree with the teachings of Jesus and His Apostles, that we eagerly do the works of God because of that salvation. His works all boil down to loving God and loving our neighbor. These are the perfect law of liberty that sets us free. These are what all of our works should be grounded in. This is what it means to be doers of the word, and not hearers only. So we do believe in doing works for our God. The works are not to earn us anything but come from our gratitude and joy of the blessings poured out upon us. Glory be to God! Let's go and do likewise.

May 14, 2019

SWIFT TO HEAR

James 1:19-20

So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.

Personal Challenge

It is so easy to jump to a conclusion in a situation and start blurting out my response. All too often that response is premature and ends up making the situation so much worse. This is such good advice to keep both ourselves and others in our relationship from resorting to angry responses. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner!

May 13, 2019

FATHER OF LIGHTS

James 1:17

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.

Encouraging Words

We believe that our God, the Father, is pure uncreated light and that everything, whether visible to us or invisible, is exposed by that uncreated light. He sees all and is in all. We receive from Him every good and perfect gift, especially the gift of eternal life through His Son. He never sways or is distracted from His love for His creation and us. Glory be to Him!

May 12, 2019

TEMPTATION—>DESIRE—>SIN

James 1:14-15

But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.

Personal Challenge

To continue James' dissertation on temptation and sin, we are reminded that we, alone, are responsible for the sin in our lives. We cannot say, "The devil made me do it." There are so many ways that temptation enters our lives. If we are trying to live a godly life, one that seeks to be like Christ, then we will constantly be confronted by temptations that are contrary to that desired life. Temptations, in and of themselves, are not bad and not sins. If, however, we entertain that temptation to the point where it arouses one of our desires or passions that we have been striving to control or eliminate in our lives, then we have started down the path to sin. It is still not too late to say, "No!", and to run to God for help. If however, we choose to entertain that desire or passion, then sin has now been conceived and will be acted upon. This is all a series of choices that we make. The challenge in our lives is to keep saying, "No!", to the temptations and the desires, and "Yes!", to Christ. The blessing in all of this is that our God still stands ready to forgive us of our sins if we repent and return to Him. Glory be to God!

May 11, 2019

Saint of the Week

St. Isaac the Syrian

May 10, 2019

GOD DOES NOT TEMPT

James 1:13

Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone.

Personal challenge

It is so easy to get mad at God when temptations come our way, but He will not and cannot tempt us. Many temptations in our lives come from our own doing. We either harbor a passion or a desire and then do things to feed them or we "innocently" walk into that donut shop when we are in the middle of a diet. We cause our own temptations in these situations. Many temptations come from the fallen world that we live in. In all cases, it is not God that tempts us. God is there to help us through the temptation. He does allow the temptations in order to strengthen us and to teach us. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner.

May 9, 2019

ENDURANCE

James 1:12

Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.

Encouraging Words

Having temptations showing up in our lives does not mean that we are not being good Christians. To the contrary, it means that we are striving to be like Christ. It is when we give in to the temptation that we are sinning. One measure of our progress on our journey to theosis is how well we endure the temptations. It is this endurance the leads to the crown of life promised to us. Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy!

May 8, 2019

WISDOM

James 1:5-6

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.

Encouraging Words

God does not leave us alone in our trials and tribulations. He stands ready to give us the wisdom that we need to make it through to the other side. However, we must be willing to recognize that we do not have the wisdom that we need and we must be willing to humble ourselves before our God seeking Him to give us the wisdom needed. God does not skimp in the wisdom that He gives us. He gives it to us liberally and without reproach if we pursue Him in faith and asking without doubting. We can have confidence in Him and His promises. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner.

May 7, 2019

TRIALS

James 1:2-4

My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.

Personal Challenge

We cannot make it through life without encountering trials and tribulations. Many times these trials are of our own doing and the consequences of our sinful behaviors. No matter what the cause is of the trial that we are going through, what does count is how we deal with it. We are told here, by James, to count our trials as joy. What? Is he crazy? Our trials are there to help us to grow in our faith in God and His power and presence in our lives. Taking on these trials with this mindset produces patience within us, patience that prepares us for the next trial and draws us closer to God. By living this way we will soon see that we do not lack anything in our Lord. Glory be to God!

May 6, 2019

OBEDIENCE

Hebrews 13:17

Obey those who rule over you, and be submissive, for they watch out for your souls, as those who must give account. Let them do so with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you.

Personal Challenge

Obedience, something that we all struggle with all of the days of our lives. It starts with having to obey our parents, then our teachers, then our employers. Somewhere in that constant shift of who we have to obey, we also realize that we have to obey those who are governing us, whether it be the police officer enforcing traffic laws or elected government officials. It is this last group that this verse is so often applied to. But what about our religious leaders. The Orthodox church is a hierarchical church. The priest presides over the local parish and has the final say so there. But he is submissive to the bishop who presides over the diocese and the local parishes that comprise it. Finally, the bishops, collectively form the synod who collectively guide the jurisdiction. And they, like all of us in the Church, are submissive to our ultimate Head, Jesus Christ. In our modern age of individualism, we have a tendency to pick and choose who we submit to and obey. We believe that we have the right to set the rules and expect others to abide by them. In respect to this verse, we are truly mistaken if we believe this. We are told to obey those who rule over us and to be submissive to them. We do that because they are being held accountable by God to be good shepherds and spiritual fathers to us. We should not make their jobs any harder than it already is. Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy!

May 5, 2019

SACRIFICE OF PRAISE

Hebrews 13:15-16

Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name. But do not forget to do good and to share, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.

Personal Challenge

What is one of the more critical forms of sacrifice that our Lord wants from us? It is the sacrifice of praise to Him. But we must not stop there in this verse. What qualifies as a sacrifice of praise to Him? It is not just what we do during our liturgies and worship services on Sunday's. The fruit of our lips, all of the time, is our sacrifice of praise. Does my language carry put-downs or derogatory and cutting remarks toward people, all people? Then that is not a sacrifice of praise to God. Do I express anger in my conversations, talk about others, tell off-color jokes, or anything else that I would be embarrassed about if I looked over my shower and saw Jesus standing there. Then that is not a sacrifice of praise to God. Do I do any of these things on Facebook, or Instagram, by email, or any other means by which I can say, "Nothing came out of my mouth."? Then I am still not offering a sacrifice of praise to God. Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy! Forgive us of our sins!

May 4, 2019

Saint of the Week

St. Athanasius the Great

May 3, 2019

UNSHAKEN

Hebrews 12:28

Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.

Encouraging words

We believe that the Kingdom of God is unshakeable. It cannot be breached by the enemy and it cannot be infiltrated. We also believe that the Kingdom of God exists today and that we are citizens of it even though we are ambassadors in temporary tents in this world. It is this belief that drives out all fear and trepidation with the things that are happening in this world. Through this belief, we too can be unshaken. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner!

May 2, 2019

CLOUD OF WITNESSES

Hebrews 12:1-2

Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Encouraging words

Every time that I step into an Orthodox church, I step into the presence of all of the saints that are presented in the icons around me. No, we do not worship these saints or the icons that are written about them. No, these are not graven images. God, Himself, is the ultimate iconographer in that when He created mankind, He created us in His image. When Jesus took on human form and became God incarnate, He became an icon of God the Father for He said, "He who has seen me, has seen the Father." The icons of the saints that we surround ourselves with bring them into our lives and us into theirs. That is what this passage is telling us. We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses that are there with us while we run this race of life. They are rooting for us, coaching us, interceding for us so that we might end the race well and hear, "Well done, My good and faithful servant." Glory be to God!

May 1, 2019

FAITH SEES US THROUGH

Hebrews 11:17-19

By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, “In Isaac your seed shall be called,” concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense.

Personal challenge

Our faith is not only in God but also in the promises that He gives. We must be careful to not make those promises more important than God. God had promised Abraham that his offspring would be numbered greater than the sands on the beach. He saw the beginning of that promise when very late in his life, God gave him His only son, Isaac. Then, when Isaac was a young boy, God asked Abraham to do the unthinkable, to offer him up as a sacrifice to show God how much he loved Him. This was hard for Abraham, but he had so much faith in God and the promise that God had made to him, that he saw through the death of his son to the promise that a great nation would rise up through Isaac. His faith made it possible for him to be willing to do the impossible, just as God's love for us was able to take Him to the point of having His son die for us. Glory be to God!