Who’s In Control?

THE HOLY BIBLE (The Good News Translation – James 1:19-22; 26-27): ¹⁹Remember this, my dear brothers and sisters! Everyone must be quick to listen, but slow to speak and slow to become angry. ²⁰Human anger does not achieve God's righteous purpose. ²¹So get rid of every filthy habit and all wicked conduct. Submit to God and accept the word that he plants in your hearts, which is able to save you. ²²Do not deceive yourselves by just listening to his word; instead, put it into practice.
²⁶Do any of you think you are religious? If you do not control your tongue, your religion is worthless and you deceive yourselves. ²⁷What God the Father considers to be pure and genuine religion is this: to take care of orphans and widows in their suffering and to keep oneself from being corrupted by the world.

THOUGHTS: Bankers must follow the rules, regulations and sometimes even the desires of their regulators, in order to stay in their good graces and know that they are doing what they understand the law requires of them. I believe this is pretty prevalent in many things that we do in life, but being especially concerned in this blog with what I interpret from the Bible that God requires of us, I want to remind us of exactly what God said through His servant James, in the highlighted verses today. God's ultimate desire, I believe, is that we be as much like Him as possible. Particularly, that we be righteous, even as He is righteous. I believe it is evident from these verses, and God's Word in general, that we will never attain righteousness as long as we allow Satan a foothold in our lives. So how do we know when this is occurring? When we do those things, and act in ways that do not represent what we know about God. We are reminded in the scripture today that self-control is very important. In other words, way too often we allow our anger to get the better part of us and we react way too quickly, based on our own opinions, rather than listening a little longer. The only way we can listen longer, is the speak less. When we do this we avoid jumping to our conclusions prematurely, and instead hearing the full story from the heart of the one speaking. Think about it friend, while God desires peace and goodwill towards our fellow man, Satan desires just the opposite to God. So when we speak prematurely and cause an argument or hard feelings in the other person, we are pleasing what Satan wants from us, not God. I am so amazed and always blessed by God's Word, because whenever we read about God's demands or His 'thou shall not's', we can often read on and see what it is that He desires from us instead. Look at verse 27, and notice what God wants us to do with our time, instead of being Satan's vehicle to stir up trouble and discontent. If we desire to help, and practice helping those who cannot help themselves and love them like Jesus would, don't you see that we will be overwhelmed in appreciation of all that God has blessed us with, rather than letting Satan use us to tear down and destroy others – which is his main goal? Friends, please remember that if we have surrendered our lives to Jesus Christ, our actions are driven by God, otherwise we are naturally driven to please Satan. Strictly based on your actions, who's driving you?

PRAYER: Dear God, thank You for showing us the way to righteousness and thank You for being 'the way' to righteousness. You are the One that directed what You want from us, and You provided us with the means to accomplish that. Thank You for Jesus, and the life that He lived here on earth, in order that we might learn how to live righteously like He did. Father, in a life totally committed to being like You, I need Your hand upon my every thought, my every action and my every word, so that I might follow Your way, Your desire, and Your will for my life. May I be so committed to this kind of life that Satan will find no room to tempt or use me in any way for his dirty work. Lord, I believe that my friends reading this devotional may have similar temptations today, so I pray that You might impact their lives in such a way that they may commit to giving You full control of their life and experience a total transformation. May You have Your will and way in our lives so that we may be obedient, holy, and righteous, as You intended. I ask all this in the precious name of Jesus, AMEN!

 

FOOTNOTE: If you have been challenged to make a decision today after reading this devotional, please speak with a local Bible Teaching pastor, or read through Biblical truths on How To Know Jesus, or contact me at NuggetsFromGodsWord@outlook.com so that we can pray with you and give you help and or encouragement as you begin, or continue your walk with Jesus. Any words underlined above will indicate a link to a song that came to mind as I wrote the devotional. Feel free to click on the link and listen as you continue to read or pray. If this devotional was forwarded to you and you would like to see more, please go to blogger.nuggetsfromgodsword.org and read more, or you may freely subscribe for a daily email conveniently containing each day's devotional. If you are anywhere near the Highlands County, Florida area and do not have a church home, I would be thrilled to welcome you at Bible Fellowship Church, Sebring, FL! Click the link to check out service times and/or other special activities. God is at work among us! Please consider coming to worship with us!