James

The Call to Action

A message from James

Chapter 1

From James, one of God’s helpers and a friend of Jesus. Jesus is God’s Chosen and our Leader. Greetings to God’s people all over the world.

Friends, when you find yourselves in any kind of trouble, look on the bright side. You should realize your trust in God is being tried out, to see if it works. The experience will make you more stable, help you to develop your personalities, and get rid of your weaknesses.

So if you don’t know what to do for the best, ask God for advice. God loves to help and doesn’t make you feel bad about yourself. When you ask, trust. Don’t give in to your doubts. Those who doubt are like waves of the sea, driven to and fro by the wind. If you have no strong convictions and can never make up your mind, you can’t expect God to help you.

(9) Those Christians who are not thought of as being very important should be pleased God thinks highly of them. Prosperous Christians should be pleased when they lose their advantages because there’s no more future in being wealthy than in being a wild flower. The strong rays of the sun shrivel the plant, the flower falls off, and that’s the end of its beauty. It’s going to be the same with the rich. At the height of their success, they’ll suddenly find themselves stony broke.

Well done, those who come through their troubles with a smile on their faces! They’ll be rewarded with life to the full, promised to those who love God. No one having bad times should say, “God’s putting me through all this.” God never has any thought of doing harm and isn’t responsible for our difficulties. It’s our own desires that get us into trouble. We let bad thoughts give birth to bad actions which then grow and multiply until they completely destroy us. It’s time to face realities, dear friends!

(17) Everything good in our lives, every kind and generous act, bears the mark of God’s influence. God made light itself and has no dark or changeable side. It was God’s idea to make us what we are by speaking the truth to us. We’re meant to be the pointers to what the rest of God’s creation will be like.
Remember this, dear friends. Everyone should be eager to listen but careful about what they say, and slow to be angry. Anger is not what God wants from us. So get rid of all greed and selfishness, and be willing to let the truth God has planted in you grow, until your whole personality is changed for the good.

Don’t just listen to God; do what God says. Otherwise you’re only playing games. People who listen to God and do nothing are like those who notice the bags under their eyes when they look in the mirror, then carry on with the lifestyle which makes them look so tired. But those who are aware of what’s best for them, the way of freedom, and keep on reminding themselves so they do something about it, are the ones who’ll get happiness out of life.

(26) Do you think you’re religious? If you don’t know when to shut up, you’re fooling yourself. Your religion’s a fake. True religion, what the Loving God recognizes as the genuine article, involves caring for all who are suffering hardship, and not falling for popular prejudices.

Chapter 2

My friends, those who are true followers of our great hearted Leader, Jesus the Chosen One, don’t display snobbery. Suppose someone wearing expensive jewelry and clothes comes into your meeting, and someone poor, wearing dirty clothes, comes in at the same time. If you pay special attention to the one who’s well-dressed and say, “Please take a seat” and then say to the one who looks down and out, “Stand over there” or “You can sit on the floor,” you’re being snobbish and judging on the basis of prejudice. Let’s get this clear, my dear friends. God has chosen poor people from society to serve as the best examples of what it means to be a Christian, and to be the leading citizens in God’s New World. The poor are the ones who really love God. So why do you look down on them? It’s the rich who oppress you! They’re the people who have you up in court! They’re the ones who give you a bad name!
If you keep to the high principle found in the old books, “Love other people as you love yourself,” you’ll do alright. But if you pick and choose who to be nice to, you’ve gone against that principle and put yourself completely in the wrong. Either you live your life according to God’s rules or you don’t. You can’t pick and choose which rules you’re going to keep. The one who said, “Don’t entice somebody else’s partner away from them” also said, “You must not kill.” You get no credit for keeping one rule if you break the other. Instead of thinking about rules like this, it’s better to model your life in such a way that will give freedom to everyone. God will have no compassion for those who haven’t shown any. Compassion must take the place of judgment!

(14) What’s the use, my friends, if you say you trust in God and it makes no difference to the way you behave? Can trust make you a better person? If there are people you know about who haven’t enough food or clothes, do you think it will do any good if you say to them, “Have a nice day! Keep warm and make sure you have enough to eat!” unless you give them what they need? Trust without action is useless!

Someone will probably argue, “We’re all different. You’re a practical person, I’m a thinker.” I say your thinking is shallow if it has no practical outcome. I’ll show you the depth of my thinking by the way I act. So you think there’s only one God? Well done – so do God’s worst enemies. They tremble at the thought. It should be obvious, there’s no point in trusting God if you don’t put your trust to good effect.
It was your ancestor Abraham’s willingness to offer his son as a gift to God that brought about his good relationship with God, wasn’t it? His trust and his actions went hand in hand. His actions demonstrated his trust to perfection. That’s why the old books say, “Abraham put his trust in God and God recognized him as a good person.” And that’s why Abraham was called “God’s Friend.” So you see, we get on good terms with God by what we do, and not just by the way we think.

I’ll give you another example. Do you remember Barbara the prostitute? Barbara pleased God by what she did when she sheltered some spies in her house and helped them escape. Just as a body isn’t alive if it’s not breathing, so trust in God is dead without anything to show for it!

Chapter 3

Friends, my advice to most of you is not to try to be teachers. It’s difficult to keep up the standards expected of a teacher. All of us make lots of mistakes. You’ve got to be perfectly in control of yourself to be able to say the right thing every time. Think of the way a bit is put into a horse’s mouth to get it to obey us, or the way a very large ship, needing strong winds to drive it along, is steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. The tongue is only a small part of the body, but it’s got a lot of power. A big forest can be set on fire by a tiny spark. That’s what the tongue can do. It can affect your whole personality with its evil influence, and ruin your life with its destructive force. It’s possible to tame every kind of animal – birds, snakes, dolphins – it’s been done! The tongue is a different matter. It’s evil; it won’t be controlled; its poison is deadly. We use our tongues to say “thank you” to the Loving God, and then we use them to be nasty to other people who’ve been made in God’s likeness. We shout praise and abuse in the same breath! Friends, this won’t do! Can you get clean and dirty water from the same tap? Have you ever seen olives growing on fig trees? Or figs on a grapevine? You can’t get drinking water from the sea!

(13) Anyone who wants to be known as wise and understanding should lead a life worthy of respect, with the marks of gentleness and good sense. If you’re full of bitter feelings or out to get your own way, don’t make things worse by pretending to be a saint. That’s the sort of cleverness really wicked people get up to. God doesn’t think it clever! Wherever people are selfish and spiteful, there’ll be quarrelling and all sorts of bad behavior. The wisdom that comes from God has no unpleasant side to it. It’s peaceful, kind, and friendly; it takes account of the feelings of others and does lovely things; it’s free from prejudice and humbug. A land needs peace if crops are to be sown and harvested successfully. Peace-lovers are the ones who bring true prosperity.

Chapter 4

Why are you always squabbling and falling out among yourselves? It’s because you’re frustrated! You want something you can’t have, and that makes you aggressive. You’re even ready to kill to get your hands on something you fancy, but you still aren’t satisfied. You have an empty feeling because you don’t ask God to supply your needs. Even when you do ask God, you don’t get anything because your motives are selfish. You’re out to have a good time! You want to have it both ways! It’s time you realized you can’t be God’s friends if you flirt with God’s enemies. Anyone just trying to be popular is going against God. The old books warn us that the personalities God gave us have been twisted by our jealous desires. But we can get strength from God to put things right. The old books also say, “God has no time for those who are out for themselves. God’s help is for those who recognize their need.”

Allow God to help you. Don’t give in to evil and it will soon lose its attraction. Step closer to God and God will step closer to you. If you’ve been playing with dirt, it’s time to wash your hands! If you’ve been acting a part, it’s time to be honest! Facing up to what you are should bring you to tears. It will be a change from your careless laughter. You’ve got nothing to laugh about! Allow God to take control of you and put you on a firmer footing.

Friends, don’t say nasty things about one another. Anyone who runs somebody else down or recites the rules to another is not really a champion of good behavior. Good behavior means doing the right thing yourself, not criticizing other people. There’s only one who has the right to tell us what to do and to criticize us – the one who can bring us to life or bring us to our knees! So stop playing God by telling other people what they’re doing wrong!

(13) Now I want a word with those of you who say, “Today or tomorrow I’m off to the city. I’ll spend a year there expanding my business and increasing my profits.” How can you be so sure about what’s going to happen tomorrow? Your life only lasts as long as a puff of smoke. If you had more sense you’d say, “If it’s what God wants I’ll live to do this or that.” You’re wrong to be so self-confident! It’s especially wrong to know what’s right and not to do it.

Chapter 5

It’s time for the wealthy to take the smile off their faces! I say to them: the value of your shares is falling fast; your smart clothes are wearing out; your precious possessions have turned out to be cheap imitations, and you’re beginning to look foolish. You’ve been trying to make sure you’ll be comfortable in your old age. But you’d better start listening to the complaints of the workers you underpaid. God knows their grievances! You’ve been having fun and living it up. But you’ve been responsible for the death of innocent people who weren’t able to stand up for themselves.

Be patient, dear friends. The Leader is coming! Farmers have to be patient while they wait for their crops to grow. There has to be enough rain before anything comes up. Wait patiently and keep your spirits high. The Leader is near!

Dear friends, don’t try to put the blame on someone else, or the blame will be put on you! It will all be sorted out, the moment Jesus comes.

If you want a good example of patience in the face of difficulties, remember the people in times gone by who spoke for God. We think of them as happy people because they kept going. You’ve heard about Job and how God made things come right for him after he’d come through his trials. God is compassionate and understanding.

(12) My friends, more than anything else, don’t make rash promises. Calling heaven and earth to witness, or any other form of words, will make no difference. What’s important is that your word can be relied on. Otherwise you’ll put yourselves in the wrong.

Is there anybody with a problem? They should talk with God about it. Anybody feeling especially happy? They should sing. Anybody unwell? They should ask some friends of Jesus to visit them. They will speak with God on their behalf and bring some token as an expression of God’s care. If this is done in a spirit of trust, those who are unwell will be made better, and God will put new heart into them. Anything they’ve done wrong will be forgiven.

Admit your faults to one another and together ask God to make you better people. If a good person seeks God’s help, things quickly start to happen. Elijah was human like us. He asked God to stop the rain and there was a drought for three and a half years. Then he talked with God again. The drought ended and there was a good harvest.

My friends, if someone takes a wrong turning, and you are the friend who helps them find their way back, it’s like giving the kiss of life. Your loving action will make up for many faults, theirs and yours!

 

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