To Encourage You

James 1:19-21 “Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.  Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.”

One of the greatest marks of a life that glorifies God is that a person’s concern is much more for what God has to say than what he or she has to say.  James speaks to this in the passage above.  He is talking about “the implanted word,” i.e., the Word of God that has taken root deep in a person’s heart.  It gets there by hearing the things that God has said.  It is this hearing that is a means to putting away sinful attitudes, thoughts, and actions that can so adversely affect someone’s life. 

Elsewhere the Bible speaks about this as the means whereby the Lord Jesus makes His “bride” beautiful.  His “bride” is a metaphor for the church, which is the name given to all those who have put their trust in Him.  Ephesians 5:26-27 says that the Lord “sanctif(ies) her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.”  His role in all of this is to speak to us, which He has done in the words of the Bible, and our role is to allow Him to cleanse us by listening to what He has said and obeying Him.  But if we are more interested in what WE think, it will be demonstrated by our desire to have people hear what we have to say, and by telling people what makes US upset about the world. James would have us to know that it is not what we think or what we say that produces the righteousness and holiness that God desires for us. It’s always what God thinks and what He says.  Therefore, a Christian’s paramount desire should be to be quick, eager, hungry to listen to Him and to do what He says.  It is what He says that should influence what we say, so we have a great need to hear Him first.  

So often Jesus urged people to have “ears to hear” what He said (Matthew 11:15).   We should likewise have a much greater desire to know what angers Him rather than be so concerned about what angers us. We can only know that by listening to His Word, and listening to it with “meekness.”  We should submit ourselves to what God has said, not get angry if it rubs us the wrong way.  We should not long to hear preachers that tell us how wonderful we are, a condition that is called having “itching ears” (2 Timothy 4:3). Rather, we should long to hear preaching that tells us the truth, even if that truth hurts.   

But that’s the opposite of what we so often see today. People, even in the church, are eager to tell us that what God has said about sin is not what he really means, all in an attempt to justify attitudes and behaviors that do nothing more than show they are rejecting Him.  May God help us to be swift to hear and slow to speak, especially as it pertains to hearing His Word.