Daily Meditations on the Bible / We stand with Israel
It turns out that today’s “Wisdom Wednesday” post is found in the next installment of James…
If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.
Finding Wisdom
What good is wisdom? What does it buy you? How is a person with this thing called “wisdom” any better off than the next one who has none? What is wisdom anyway?
Continue reading “Wisdom Wednesday – James 1: 5”
Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
I was reading Ecclesiastes yesterday. Chapter 1 begins, “‘Meaningless! Meaningless!’ says the Teacher…” “Everything is meaningless.” I pondered this attitude of Solomon’s wondering what it means. As I thought about it, I realized that compared to being in the presence of God, everything in this life actually is meaningless.
God’s values are not man’s values. We saw this in the words and actions of Jesus as we studied John’s gospel. Jesus is not from around here, a fact made evident by his the way he talked and what he did.
I believe the Bible is consistent on this point. It seems so in this passage from James. He wants us to be “mature and complete, not lacking anything.” It is up to us, his readers, to decipher what “thing” he is talking about!
Continue reading “The Eternal Perspective – James 1: 4”His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
Escape
If 2 Peter were a car, it would be one where the driver has stomped on the gas and when the engine has redlined, popped the clutch. The result is a very high-speed start.
Peter has barely said, “Hello!” before he dives into the essentials of Christian living. His first words are brassy, powerful, and encouraging. “His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life…”
Wow.
It is easy to take our eye off of the ball (and of Scripture) and lose sight of this truth. We have everything we need for a godly life.
So what do we need?
Continue reading “Affirmation Monday – 2 Peter 1: 3-4”
Blessed is the one
who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
or sit in the company of mockers,
but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,
and who meditates on his law day and night.
Today’s meditation begins another new feature at Three Minute Bible, Psalm Sunday. Each Sunday we will look into the Psalms for inspiration. I don’t know if we will jump around the book of Psalms or go straight through. Either way, there is a lot of material here so I’m not worried about running out of things to talk about.
Two Paths
In today’s verse, King David points to two different paths. One path is described as the place where the wicked are. Sinners are there as are mockers. Is this information helpful? How do we discern what is sin or what the wicked do? Mocking is easy to recognize, but is the mocker bad?
Continue reading “Psalm Sunday – Psalm 1: 1-2”
…because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.
The word, “test” is one of those words with many connotations and meanings. In today’s verse James explains what he means by suggesting we should consider “trials of many kinds” as “pure joy.” Testing, he says, produces perseverance.
He is not talking about the kind of testing that an engineer might use to determine how strong something is. That kind of test requires pushing a material or design to the breaking point. When testing a material that way, we measure where the failure is. That information is used to design something that will not fail when it undergoes a different kind of test.
Continue reading “Testing – James 1: 3”