(James 1:1 NLT) This letter is from James, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. I am writing to the “twelve tribes”–Jewish believers scattered abroad. Greetings!
• What PRINCIPLES guide how you live your life? The world or the WORD?
(Genesis 3:1 NLT) Did God really say . . . .?
(Proverbs 16:25 NLT) There is a path before each person that seems right, but it ends in death.
(Psalm 119:81 NLT) … I am worn out waiting for your rescue, but I have put my hope in your word.
(Matthew 7:24-25 MSG) …They are foundational words, words to build a life on. If you work these words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who built his house on solid rock. Rain poured down, the river flooded, a tornado hit—but nothing moved that house. It was fixed to the rock.
(John 1:1 NLT) In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God.
• The problem is we don’t see the Bible as GOD. We see the Bible as just a BOOK.
1. GRATEFUL for the TRUTH that saves me.
(James 1:16-17 NIV) Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.
Good God – – – Bad devil.
(James 1:18 NIV) He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of first fruits of all he created.
√ I go from GOT TO to GET TO.
(Romans 10:17 NKJV) So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
2. HUMBLY receive the Truth that CONFRONTS me.
(James 1:19-21 NIV) My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.
√ I go from PRIDE leading to GOD leading.
3. LEAN into the Truth that GUIDES you.
(James 1:22-25 NIV) Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.
Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it–not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it–they will be blessed in what they do.
