Fervent Prayer

Jas 5:13 Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms.
Jas 5:14 Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord:
Jas 5:15 And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.
Jas 5:16 Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

The power of prayer. You've heard it said before that there is power in prayer and there really is. We are told to pray.

If we are afflicted. Pray.
If we are sick. Pray.
If we are repented and seeking forgiveness. Pray.
If we have faults. Pray.

We must pray!

Prayer is instantly recognizing God as our Creator, our Savior, our Redeemer. At least sincere prayer is all that. Too many pray without sincerity. Too many pray repetitive prayers that lose all their power because they are prayed without any real meaning. When we talk to someone they know whether or not what we are saying is sincere- at least most of the time they do. People can tell when we are speaking from the heart can't they? You can see the interest, or lack of it in another as you are speaking. Have you ever been talking and seen the one you are talking to just lose focus in what you're saying? Have you gotten mad because what you were saying was important- to you at least? When we talk to people it is very seldom just to hear ourselves speak, right? We want the other person to listen to what we are saying and respond as one that has heard. It is NO different with God. When we speak with God it has to be sincere speaking, not passionless, but filled with passion. We can't expect God to hear our prayers if we are praying but NOT really speaking to Him at all. We can't drone on and drone and expect God to listen to us.

The effectual FERVENT prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

Fervent- 'having or showing great warmth or intensity of spirit, feeling, enthusiasm, etc.; ardent: a fervent admirer; a fervent plea.'

Pasted from

Intensity of spirit. Enthusiasm. Great warmth. Are our prayers fervent? Do we pray with passion? Seriously, do we?

We need to.

Our righteousness is found ONLY in Christ Jesus our Savior. And we can pray fervent in His name knowing He hears, knowing that He cares.

We can choose to pray softly, silently even, and still do so with great intensity.

We need to pray. We need prayer in our lives and it must be a big part of our lives.

All through the grace and mercy of our Savior!

Amen!

Swear not....any oath

Jas 5:12 But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation.

Mat 5:34 But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne:
Mat 5:35 Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King.
Mat 5:36 Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black.
Mat 5:37 But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.

How easy it is for us to 'fall in condemnation' because we enjoy talking. Our tongues enjoy wagging. Where would most of us be if we didn't have wagging tongues? We love the sound of our own voices, don't we? Can we go a month without talking? A week? A single day? Seriously, can we willingly- not medically induced, keep from talking for a single day. What do you think would happen if you tried it? Do you think you'd succeed? You say you have to talk, that family, friends, co-workers and such are dependent upon your talking. Then ask yourself if you did have laryngitis how would they survive without your speaking? That's different you say? No, it's really not. Unless of course you result to writing, which people can do when they can't speak- but in truth it's still a form of communication and don't we need to just see what it's like NOT to speak for a bit?

This verse in James talks about us no swearing by heaven or earth or anything really. We need to speak plainly. What is more than yes and no leads to confusion a lot of times. We want to say more than yes and no we want a lot of leeway.

We do NOT want to fall into condemnation. We should not make any oaths because we have power over NOTHING. We have to realize our place and that is as a creature and as a creature we have no power, our Creator has the power and it's to Him we have to bow down and worship. We have to realize that He has the control we have none.

We are condemned when we believe we have power, when we believe we have control. As long as we believe more in ourselves and less in God we are lost. People have to believe this because it's true.

Our God is so awesome, He is all powerful!

The mercy of God is beyond our comprehension.

God is our all in all, so far above us and we are blessed, blessed to be able to worship Him.

We really do have to consider how we speak much more than we do and James has been paramount in trying to teach us this.

Please Lord help us to take Your words to heart, let us realize our place, You are our all in all forever and ever.

Amen.

Endure

Jas 5:11 Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.

Endure.
Persevering.
Continuing in spite of wanting to give up.
Carry on, regardless of circumstances.

Having faith, enduring.

We bring up Job as an example all the time and why? Because we need to. We need to understand life at it's possible worse for us and even in that believing in God.

Satan wants us to blame God.
Satan wants us to give up.
Satan does NOT want us to endure.
Satan does NOT want us to have patience.
Satan does NOT want us to have faith.

We have to keep the patience of Job in our lives always when it's the hardest to do so, when it seems impossible to do so. When tragedies strike we CAN'T blame God! We CAN'T give up! We MUST endure!

Our Savior is very compassionate, our Savior's mercy in unending. We have to endure… we have to and by the GRACE and RIGHTEOUSNESS of our SAVIOR we will.

Only through Him, only by Him, always in His love!

Clean my heart, Lord, please!

Mat 15:11 Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.

This goes along with the tongue being an evil member doesn't it? Seriously, it's what comes out of our mouths that defiles us.

What we speak. The things we say.

How can we even dare to open our mouths when so much evil is ready to spill forth? It's so easy to sin when we speak, so incredibly easy.

You hear of monks and such taking vows of silence, how amazing it must be for them to be forced by their own vow to NOT defile themselves with their mouths. If we would just follow the Word given to us and be 'SLOW to SPEAK', how much sin would be averted? If only we'd think before we speak and yet we are so quick to JUMP in and just say anything that comes to our minds. We don't take time to think, we speak because we want to, because we feel we have to voice our opinions. We feel we have a RIGHT to our opinions. I've said that so many times- I have a right to my opinion, it's just my opinion and what I'm doing is using 'my opinion' as the supposed right to say what I please and I expect no consequence from what I say because it's just my opinion and I'm entitled.

WE ARE NOT ENTITLED TO HURT OTHERS WITH OUR WORDS- opinion or not.

We are not entitled to create fuss and arguments because we just have to speak. We DO have the option of NOT SPEAKING.

So many of us have issues with our mouths, it's not limited to those with thinking problems. I know I have a BIG problem and I know the defiling stuff that comes from my mouth abhors me! I don't want to have a mouth that defiles me.

Mat 12:34 O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.

I don't want to have an evil heart! I don't want to have a defiling heart! I want a CLEAN heart and a mouth that doesn't defile.

Psa 51:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.

Only by the grace of God can I have a clean heart. I need God to create a clean heart in me. Please LORD
CLEAN MY HEART!

Please!

The prophets- an example for us

Jas 5:10 Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience.

We are to look at the prophets, the Apostles, we have to look at the men and women of the Bible as examples. We are foolish if we refuse to look at their lives and understand that they ARE examples for us. An example is something you look at to know what something else should be like. If you're giving an example on how to do something you are to follow that example and do what the example shows you. We are to do as the disciples alive when Jesus walked the earth did. We are to be as they were. Can we be exactly like them? No. We can't be exactly like them because we live in totally different times. However, we must be like them in our passion, our compassion, our love, our attitudes. The Bible gives us so much instruction and if we ignore it then we are fools.

Right here in this verse we are being told we have examples to follow- examples in SUFFERING AFFLICTION and PATIENCE.

We will suffer!
We need patience in that suffering.

When we read of the lives of the Apostles we must do so with the understanding we are to expect our lives to be no different. We aren't going to suffer less. We aren't going to be given special exemptions from suffering and if we think we are then we are in for a rude awakening. We are called to comprehend.

We are to suffer.

Honestly, if our Savior suffered why in the world would we think we should not have a life of suffering?

There are so many ways of suffering too. Maybe we don't have men trying to find reasons to kill us for something we say they don't agree with, in fact most of us don't, but we have different types of suffering.

We have to suffer through big things and many, many little things. When we stop and wonder why we suffer, all we have to do is look at the Apostles, look at our Savior and know that we suffer because we are called to do so. We live in a world that is as far from perfect as it can be and with things so messed up there is going to be that much more suffering.

At the beginning of the book of James we were told this…

Jas 1:2 My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;
Jas 1:3 Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
Jas 1:4 But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

We cannot forget this EVER!

We will suffer but there is joy, the joy of the love found in our Savior.

May we learn from the examples given to us, learn and understand our lives as followers of Christ.

Please Lord bless us, help us to look at the examples You have provided for us and as we look at those examples Lord help us to follow them, know they followed You and we too would be Yours wholly and completely Yours.

All by Your grace, through Your love!

Amen.

The JUDGE stands before the door.

Jas 5:9 Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned: behold, the judge standeth before the door.

Grudge not.

Murmur not, complain not.

What's it mean to be a complainer? Seriously, what does it say about a person when they complain about others? What's that complaining accomplishing? Is complaining- loving?

That's it right there, isn't it. Complaining is not speaking highly of someone but belittling them for whatever reason a person has- even one they might feel is totally justified. When we belittle anyone it's not love- right? How can it be? So many people have warped beliefs- they think their belittling is constructive criticism and therefore acceptable. They believe that as long as their intentions are not to truly harm another that it's all well and good to complain about them, it's not as if they're telling actually lies or anything. Voicing our opinions is something we've been taught is perfectly acceptable and it doesn't matter who it harms because after all it's just our opinion right, and we're entitled to have that opinion. Yet where does love come into play here, in all this?

Do NOTHING that you would NOT want done to you.

And once more you'll get people who claim they'd love to have you give them constructive criticism and if it takes on the form of belittling oh well, they can handle it. But then often when you do just that they're the first to take real offense and want to 'get back' at you for making them feel the way you did.

Does anyone truly long to be murmured against? Does anyone truly crave belittling? Again I hear choruses of yes, there are freakish people who love that and pay people to degrade them. While that is true - would we call that healthy? Seriously, would we call that normal? We actually call it deviant behavior because it goes against the mores of society and those mores are created from what is most commonly believed. Is it safe to say there are people in every single family that want to be degraded? No. I don't think so. I think it might be more common than I'd like to believe but it's still not the majority. There are scandals started from such behavior when prominent people in society are found to have committed such deviant behavior.

'Grudge not one against another' - murmur not, complain not. We are not to utter a single word against another person that we would not turn around and want to have uttered against us in a similar situation, if not exact.

Imagine for a moment that you are talking with Jesus and Jesus says something like this- "Yes, he's a very lazy person, and the way he clothes himself is disgraceful. Did you see the way he eats with his mouth open and wipes his hands on his clothes? And he didn't even thank me when I gave him a meal."

Seriously, could you even imagine our Savior talking like that?! Maybe it's true the man is lazy, maybe it's true that the clothes the man wears are disgraceful and yes, he does eat with his mouth open and wipes his dirty fingers on his clothes. And mostly like the man never ever thought once to thank Him when he was fed. All of it is truth, but can you imagine Jesus speaking like that?

Just because something might be true of another person does that give us the right to speak against them? To disparage them? To murmur and complain against them? We want to have the right because we are so incredibly prone to speaking about others like this, and if we have the right then all is well and good but the truth of the matter is- we do NOT have the right no matter how true the facts are. When we choose to speak complaints- however true of another we are speaking in a way our Savior would never speak. Compassion is LOST when we choose to speak out in complaining, murmuring ways. We lose a lot of our compassion when we speak, and that compassion is born out of love for our fellow man. The complaining, the murmuring does NOTHING constructive whatsoever. Voicing our complaints against others has NO good result, NONE. It's like talking for the sake of hearing your own voice without edifying anyone and when we talk that way it bears nothing good, nothing of love. We can try and fool ourselves that we only speak out of love, but the truth is, we are speaking to hear ourselves speak and the devil loves when we do that.

The words that come from our mouths should be ALWAYS uplifting, always working for the good of God's love. We ought to be ashamed of ourselves when we speak ill of others NO MATTER HOW MUCH TRUTH there is in what we are saying.

Jas 5:9 Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned: behold, the judge standeth before the door.

WE WILL BE CONDEMNED by our own words.
With what measure…

Mat 7:1 Stop judging, so that you won't be judged.
Mat 7:2 For with the judgment you use, you will be judged. And with the measure you use, you will be measured.

Jesus' words!

With ever word we utter against another we are being measured against those words. Our lack of compassion is being measured. Our lack of love for our fellow man is being measured. When we are judged by the same standards we judge with we will mourn our foolishness, we will lament our lack of compassion, our lack of love.

'The JUDGE stands before the door.'

The Judge knows, the Judge is there listening to our every word.

Please God, please help us to pray that You'll keep the door to our lips which speak so often grudgingly, murmuring, complaining against others. Please Lord help us! We are so incredibly prone to speak from our self-centeredness and not from love. Help us, Lord, without You we have no hope whatsoever, no hope. Change our vile selfish hearts, Lord, PLEASE. Lord, You have the power to change our hearts, You and You alone can bless us and take our wickedness and forgive us, cleansing us, changing us. Please Savior, save us from ourselves, from our own wickedness we are inclined towards.

All in Your love!
All through Your grace!
All in Your mercy!
All through Your righteousness Lord!
All by Your forgiveness!

Amen!

Be patient- unto the coming of the Lord

Jas 5:7 Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord.
Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.
Jas 5:8 Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.


Be patient.

Being patient means waiting for something, yes? Can you have patience if you're not waiting for anything? I can have patience waiting in a line. I can have patience waiting in a doctor's office. I can have patience waiting for a package to arrive. I can have patience as I'm listening to someone- waiting for my own turn to speak. I can have patience as I wait for someone to learn a task they're not familiar with. When someone has patience with me, they're exhibiting that patience because they're waiting for me to even find comprehension of something they're saying. Patience is indicative of waiting, of endurance.

To be patient unto the coming of the Lord means to endure the waiting for our Lord calmly. We lack patience when we are waiting in distress, upset when what we wait for isn't coming to pass. Patience is persevering.

2Pe 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

Some men think it is slackness concerning the promise Jesus made to return. That Jesus hasn't return promptly enough.

This is part of the Webster's definition of slackness-

'Remissness; negligence; inattention; as the slackness of men in business or duty; slackness in the performance of engagements. Slowness; tardiness.'

Unlike a set appointment time, we know the Jesus will return- not the when. We cannot truly say He is slack in His promise when we were never given an actual time, right? Some who are impatient will count Jesus slack- they'll say He's remiss, He's negligent, He lack attention towards His promise, He's slow, He's tardy. We look at the state of the world and can't imagine what is keeping Him from fulfilling His promise. We look, just as the Apostles looked and thought the exact same thing. They wanted Him to return in their time. The Apostles looked at their corrupt world and desperately wanted Jesus to return. They DIDN'T count Him slack though because they trusted He would fulfill that promise just as He said He would and He wouldn't come a moment sooner. They trusted that no matter how awful their world became, no matter how awful their own personal situation and the situation of those around them, that Jesus in love would return and not delay out of anything even remotely considered slacking. Jesus is LONGSUFFERING - Jesus endures the agony along with all His chosen- suffering along with them- not wanting a single person that would be His to be lost, not one. Jesus will not return a moment too soon, He will be right on time, His time, the time He's appointed- knowing that all who would be saved are save, and those that would be lost are lost and beyond saving by their own choice.

Jas 5:7 Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord.
Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.
Jas 5:8 Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.

Anyone who has done any gardening of produce understands that you cannot rush the process of growth, of maturity, of bringing forth the fruit, ripe to the picking. Sure you can add various nutrients, supplements, chemicals and what not but in the end the process is not shortened considerably. A seed germinating and springing forth does so in its appointed time. The growth of the vine, the stalk, the plant all takes time. The appearance of the flowers to pollinate will not be forced against time. The growth of the fruit all takes time. The stuff of science fiction and fairy tales has a seed planted and full grown, bringing forth fruit in a single day- that is not reality. There is a process and as it is with these plants needing their early and latter rain- Jesus' return is a process and NOT to be rushed because we desire Him to return selfishly. Our desire should be our Savior's desire, that He not return until all who will come to Him have come to Him- not a single one is left out.

We must be patient unto the coming of the Lord.
Our hearts must be establish in that patience, knowing the Lord's coming is a REALITY, it is INEVITABLE and not something we dare forget.

By the grace of God we will be establish in our hearts- patient unto the soon coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

In HIS LOVE!
By HIS MERCY!
HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS!


Amen.