Study of James: Intro & Methods, Part 2
Sunday, September 29, 2019
Peace to Live By Study of James: Intro & Methods, Part 2 - Daniel Litton
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[Transcript may not match broadcasted sermon word for word. Sections in bold are extra material that was cut from the broadcast due to time constraints]
I hope everyone is doing well today.
Last week we opened our study of the Book of James here by discussion a brief background of this wonderful New Testament book. We noted that the author James was actually Jesus’ half-brother, who, after Jesus’ ascension into Heaven, came to believe in him as his Lord and Savior. I believe we will find, as we look into this book, that it is rich full of wonderful truths, insights James has for us, which are relevant even in our day and age. The Bible is truly timeless, and beneficial to us no matter who we are.
I also stated last week that there are three primary things I want us to consider as we work through this book here. The first, which we went over in detail, is what I have called The Four Levels of Inner-Self. These represent a summary of the four different types of people I have noticed when it comes to mental development and Christian growth. Our goal, obviously, is to reach the Above State of Inner-Self. That should be our ultimate goal when it comes to our mental development as Christians. Hopefully you were able to clearly identify where you stand on the scale, though undoubtedly, it may not have been a pleasant realization.
The other two methods of understanding our Book of James here is what I want to discuss first here. Again, the three primary methods are things I want us to keep in our minds as we consider the passages in this book. Now, the other two, recall, are Giving Up Control and finally, The Law of Liberty. I believe these other two methods are essential for us, and will help us greatly, to squeeze more out of the Book of James, and to understand ourselves better in the process. We need to understand where we are now if we want to grow for the future. Ignoring the truth of where we stand in our lives, in our mental growth as a Christian isn’t going to get us anywhere.
Giving Up Control
Now that I’ve discussed the Four Levels of Inner-Self, I want to talk about something that is so important for us in our lives. This point is so key that I believe, once you realize the concept, you will wish to practice this more and more. What I am talking about is giving up control, or we might say, surrendering. Yes, this is the concept, and it sounds like something to dread. Of course, it depends on your current level of Inner-Self. Nonetheless, as we read the Book of James in our study, we are going to see the theme of giving up control throughout its chapters. Yes, this is a concept that is hidden behind a lot of what James is saying to us. Once we realize this fact, we will be amazed.
What is giving up control? What is surrendering? Simply this: we give up control when we don’t allow fear to rule us in any way, and when we accept things as they come to us. First, let’s discuss not allowing fear to control us. Some of us are so dominated by fear it is pathetic. It is ingrained into our minds, as if it were the very waters flowing through our mental channels. What we have to do is learn not to be afraid of any thought that comes to us. Yes, that’s correct. We spend so much time resisting thoughts because we think and believe (we were even taught in most cases; I have even taught this) that that is what we were supposed to do. Remember, isn’t James going to say, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (4:7, ESV)?
True resistance, however, is facing a thought even when fear is present. It is facing it with boldness, and that means facing it in the first place. Whatever thought we think, whether it is uncomfortable, unwanted, perceived as evil, whatever—the key is to face the thought by not placing any judgment on it. Let the thought play out. We don’t embrace it, and we don’t get afraid of it. We simply let it play out in our minds. We will see, after a short time, that the thought will pass. It will lose it’s steam and go away on its own because we did not embrace it in anyway. We didn’t fear the thought, we didn’t elaborate on it, we didn’t debate it out; we just viewed it with no judgment and once it saw were weren’t going to embrace it, it passed. That’s what I am talking about when I talk about giving up control, or surrendering. We try to control because we are afraid, but this consciously trying to control our thoughts really doesn’t do us any good. When we suppress a thought by getting afraid of it, it is simply just going to come back later. And that later is usually pretty quickly.
The second part to this concept is accepting whatever our lives bring to us. What does this mean? Sounds kind of scary, doesn’t it? Well, admittedly, at first glance it does. What I am talking about here though is also simple. Just like with getting out of living in a fear state, this second part is simply coming to the realization of this one fact: “nothing really matters but God.” Did you get that statement. I said, “Nothing matters but God.” That’s the key.
It’s our personal relationship with God that really, ultimately, and dare I say, only matters. Sure, we have other things that we think matters. We have our families, our careers, good reputations, wonderful possessions (things we have obtained that we wanted and worked for), our friends, our brothers and sisters, our animals, and lots of money perhaps. While all these things are great, they don’t really matter. They are all ultimately expendable. Our relationship with God, though, that’s not expendable. We want that, we need that, and we have to have it. And there is a secret behind coming to this realization—a secret you might not have expected. I’ll give you a hint—think of Job from the Old Testament.
How we react to life’s problems is highly contingent upon where we stand in the Four Levels of Inner-Self. For example, let’s take the illustration of a person who loses her job after tens years, a job which she enjoyed and highly valued. The Level One person is likely going to take this negative event from the standpoint of victimization, saying something like, “I can’t believe this has happened to me. Now my life is ruined. I’ll never find another good job.” Self-pity is predominate here. The Level Two person might say, “My company just screwed me over after all the hard work I’ve done for them. I ought to sue them. What if I can’t find another good job to replace it?” The Level Three person would respond, “This is an unfortunate thing that has happened. However, I know God is good and this is going to work out for my good. I’ll start searching for a new job right away.” The Level Four person might say, “You know, after thinking about it, I was getting kind of tired of that job anyway. Now I am going to go find an ever better job. This is a blessing in disguise. I can feel it.”
Let me provide another example here in understanding this concept of accepting what life brings us so you can have a clearer picture. Let’s consider a man who has been married for five years and his wife walks out and leaves him for another person. The man is in disbelief at first; and cannot believe that she has done this. He trusted her. After time passes, he begins to accept what has happened but becomes bitter about it, full of anger. At this point he has a choice. He can either let his anger and self-pity consume him for months or even years on end, or he can accept that fact that his wife is gone, he’s getting a divorce, he will be divorced, and will be by himself again. The key is the acceptance. By accepting the situation, and not fighting against it, this allows God to work.
Now, God can restore the person’s relationship, or he can cause them to overcome it emotionally and go on to have a good, successful life. However, if the person won’t accept what has happened, if the man was to hold on it emotionally, all kinds of destruction would be brought forth in the form of negative emotions. Over time, he would become a negative cripple, and most, if not all of God’s power would be cut off in his life. He would develop a past-centered focus, where he looked at his life from the negative point in the past where his wife left him. It would be a tremendous weight for him, and with all that weight, moving forward would become impossible.
By accepting what has transpired, the man is not only able to move forward, but to do so in the power of God’s blessing. God wants to help people, but a big part of God’s help is giving up control. The only way to give up control is to accept what has happened. A lot of people are afraid to do that—that if they do that they relinquish some power of controlling the situation to try and make it better. The reality is, though, that not giving up control and accepting the situation is what prevents it from ever getting better. It’s a mental trap to hold on. Acceptance is the only way to recovery, and the only way to God’s future blessing.
The Law of Liberty
It is my belief that only folks who are at the Third and Fourth Levels of Inner-Self can truly experience what I am going to call the Law of Liberty. James talks about it here in chapter 1 of his epistle. The reason for this is because true freedom can only be experienced when we are flowing with the river, and that only occurs in the Level Three and Four persons. In levels One and Two, the river is flowing against the stride of the individual. There is great effort in going up the river (in going through life) versus the easy and flow of going down the river with it flowing in our direction. I believe this picture here encapsulates what I am talking about with the Four Levels of Inner-Self.
Before I go on any further, it is important that we define what the Law of Liberty is. So, what is the Law of Liberty? For those of us who become Christians, we know that we become free from sin. In a religious sense, we no longer seek to follow after ways that the Bible calls sin. We believe the God of the Universe to be holy, and because he is holy, he wants us to be holy as well. The beautiful thing is, really it’s not about our works or actions in our lives. That is part of it, but really what it is all about is the fact that we believe Jesus Christ has made us holy by his sacrifice on the cross. As it pertains to our relationship with God, then, we are set free in the sin-sense, in the sense that the Holy God now accepts us completely with no reservations against us.
While we find that we identify sin and seek not to follow sinful ways, we find that we live in a universal freedom that God intended for humans to live in when he created the world. After all, God being creator of us made us so that we would live freely. It was Satan (God’s adversary; the other power being of the universe), who provided the other option, the other way to follow. And the first humans followed his way, and this begat the tendency within each one of us to follow a God-absent way—a way that does not seek to be holy in any way, shape, or form. As many people live nowadays, though, they have come to identify that just following what you want in life can really mess things up. That’s not how society and government are setup (we realize we need rules to follow in those areas) and so it is not how life works either—at least works to the best of its ability.
The beautiful thing is, is that God has provided a way for any human to live with abundant freedom. The Scripture says when God created Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, that they were allowed to eat of many different kinds of fruit that God had created there. And this principle stands true nowadays. Even in twenty-first century America, God allows more than he prohibits, and what he prohibits we find is actually for our benefit in the long run. Yes, God has provided a vast variety of options for us in our lives. There are a variety of ways we could go, and all of which are God approved. This is freedom at its core essence.
Let me elaborate to make certain that you are hearing what I am saying. I suppose, for myself, there is a variation of different of things I could do in my life, career wise, and all of which would be good for me. I have a lot of different interests, as many of you do. Right now I work in the television industry, and I am a Bible teacher on the side. These are the two primary things I do. However, my four-year degree is in psychology, and I have always loved the study of the psychology field. I suppose, instead of working in television, I could work in the field of psychology. You know, wearing a brown suit with a brown suitcase sounds kinda nice. I could be like Bob Newhart and counsel people day to day. I think I would like that. Another thing I like is history, I could see myself as a history professor—I mean, why not? That would be a lot of fun.
The point here is that there are a variety of things I could do, and all of which would be approved by God. I could do anyone of those things and not find myself outside of God’s will. This is true for other areas of life as well. I suppose I could live all different kinds of places. There are a lot of different places I like other than Ohio. I like Arizona and California, even Colorado. I could live in any of those places. I’ve not married yet (I’m in my 35th year of breathing), and I do suppose there are all different types of girls who would suit me. Does there just have to be one?
The Law of Liberty is a great thing. It means that we are free in many areas of life to do what we desire to do. Why, God has placed certain desires in our hearts, and we look for ways to fulfill those desires. Wishing for something in and of itself certainly isn’t a bad thing. It is when the wantingness becomes too strong, when the power of giving up control, or surrender, is violated that desire hurts us. We can wish for something, but we should not want it too much. We should be willing to hold onto the desire with a loose grip. If we want something too much, we end up cutting off God’s power and can even sabotage ourselves. God’s power is not with us because we are in violation of the first commandant, remember? It says, “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3, ESV).
As a Christian, an American Christian, understand in God’s bounty that you have all kinds of choices. There is no need to unnecessarily prohibit yourself of something good—unless that’s what you want to do. We have God’s freedom; we live in light of the Law of Liberty. We should live like we are. Remember, though, this positive power is really only available to the Third and Fourth Levels of Inner-Self. The Second Level can get a taste of it at times, but it doesn’t last because the life-flow is negative.
One more thing to note about the Law of Liberty. You will come to understand, as you accept this, that the second method of understanding, giving up control, actually creates more and more liberty in your life. By not allowing fearful, negative thoughts to dominate and control our thinking—to be running rampant through our minds—we come into a greater level of freedom. I mean, after all, lack of freedom is due to fear right? One only needs to look at the country of North Korea or even Russia to understand this point. The people living in those areas have less freedom because of fear of the government. Do you have less freedom in your mind because you fear things on a constant basis—because you try to control all your thoughts constantly? Or, even because you have a false view of God? Is your God like an evil, fearful dictator? When we give up control of allowing fear to rule us, we find that we experience a whole new life without the shackles of bondage.
Conclusion of the Methods
Consider all that I have said here. Really mediate on these two last thoughts I have presented here today. Learn the power of surrender that you have within yourself that you didn’t probably realize you even had. Try to get your mind in place where you can really say, “All that matters is God.” Keep these concepts in mind here as we begin our wonderful journey through the Book of James.
Study of James
James 1:1-4 state: “James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion: Greetings. Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” (ESV).
First, I want to start by asking the question, what is a trial? Let’s think of some different words we could use to place here. Test. Problem. Ordeal. Inconvenience. Bother. Difficulty. Setback. Worry. Irritant. Misfortune. Trouble. Hassle. Affliction. Thorn in my side. A cross to bear. A burden to bear. Pain. Trying time. Nightmare. Hardship. Adversity. Tragedy. Trauma. Bad luck. Bad hand dealt. I think this gives us an idea of what we’re dealing with when we talk about a trial. There are words here we can relate to that elaborate on James’ phrase of “various kinds.”
Trials—we all have had them, and we will have more in our life before we enter the next life. Yes, it is a statement of fact in our sin-affected world. It is the way it works right now. Many afflictions are small, easy to deal with, and go away pretty quickly. Others are more cumbersome. Still others have a great weight, and may last longer than we would like. We all react in different ways. These ways correspond to our consciousness level on the Inner-Self scale, which I went over last week. We can get depressed, have a lighter, negative reaction, or we can react positively, or even rise above the trial altogether.
How does James say we are to react? What is our response? He says, “Count it all joy.” In the first level of inner-self, if it is a big trial, the response is going to be something along the lines of “I am screwed. My life is over. There goes three years.” Yes, it will be something along those lines. On the second level of inner-self, it will be something like: “I cannot believe this has happened to me. Now I am in trouble and have this problem to deal with. This is such an inconvenience to me!” The third level of inner-self moves us into the positive side of things, with a response like, “This is unfortunate this has happened, but things will work out for my good. Things always end up good in the end. I know God is with me.” The greatest response, the response of the fourth level: “Am I in a trial? I know what I can do already to make this better.”
Yes, trials reveal our faith level. Do they not? The higher we are on the thinking, Inner-Self scale, the greater our faith. On the low end, we have no faith. This is not only bad for us personally, as psychologically we are miserable, but it is also bad for us spiritually. Not only are we full of gross mental distortions and defeating emotions, but because we have no faith we have no power. We have no power to help ourselves and God’s power is non-existent in this state. We don’t believe. We don’t have any positive energy. God’s hands are tied. He can’t help us. The second level of inner-self is a little bit better. We are still mostly negative. We may have a bout of positivity that lasts for a few hours, but it quickly reverts back to the dominant negative attitude. God will be a little more likely to help us, but not by much.
Our faith level in the two upper levels of inner-self allows God’s power to flow freely. When we are positive, we see the bright side of things. The presence of a trial is not an end-all. We know it can be navigated easily. We have some level of patience to endure, and we take positive action—if there is any action we need to take. We are confident within ourselves, and we are confident in God’s ability. The next level of inner-self, the top level, is where we really shine. We are not frightened at all, not in the slightest by the presence of a trial. Like Jesus asleep in the boat during the storm, we have absolutely no worries or concerns. We acknowledge the trial when we need to. Our faith is so great that we have no doubt at all that God has everything under control and all is working toward our good.
Okay, we are out of time for today. I think this beginning part of James has been really good for us, and we will continue this discussion next week about trials.
- Daniel Litton
Today’s Acknowledgements:
Psychologist David R. Hawkins, Jerry S. Eicher, and, of course, Thomas Jefferson
I hope everyone is doing well today.
Last week we opened our study of the Book of James here by discussion a brief background of this wonderful New Testament book. We noted that the author James was actually Jesus’ half-brother, who, after Jesus’ ascension into Heaven, came to believe in him as his Lord and Savior. I believe we will find, as we look into this book, that it is rich full of wonderful truths, insights James has for us, which are relevant even in our day and age. The Bible is truly timeless, and beneficial to us no matter who we are.
I also stated last week that there are three primary things I want us to consider as we work through this book here. The first, which we went over in detail, is what I have called The Four Levels of Inner-Self. These represent a summary of the four different types of people I have noticed when it comes to mental development and Christian growth. Our goal, obviously, is to reach the Above State of Inner-Self. That should be our ultimate goal when it comes to our mental development as Christians. Hopefully you were able to clearly identify where you stand on the scale, though undoubtedly, it may not have been a pleasant realization.
The other two methods of understanding our Book of James here is what I want to discuss first here. Again, the three primary methods are things I want us to keep in our minds as we consider the passages in this book. Now, the other two, recall, are Giving Up Control and finally, The Law of Liberty. I believe these other two methods are essential for us, and will help us greatly, to squeeze more out of the Book of James, and to understand ourselves better in the process. We need to understand where we are now if we want to grow for the future. Ignoring the truth of where we stand in our lives, in our mental growth as a Christian isn’t going to get us anywhere.
Giving Up Control
Now that I’ve discussed the Four Levels of Inner-Self, I want to talk about something that is so important for us in our lives. This point is so key that I believe, once you realize the concept, you will wish to practice this more and more. What I am talking about is giving up control, or we might say, surrendering. Yes, this is the concept, and it sounds like something to dread. Of course, it depends on your current level of Inner-Self. Nonetheless, as we read the Book of James in our study, we are going to see the theme of giving up control throughout its chapters. Yes, this is a concept that is hidden behind a lot of what James is saying to us. Once we realize this fact, we will be amazed.
What is giving up control? What is surrendering? Simply this: we give up control when we don’t allow fear to rule us in any way, and when we accept things as they come to us. First, let’s discuss not allowing fear to control us. Some of us are so dominated by fear it is pathetic. It is ingrained into our minds, as if it were the very waters flowing through our mental channels. What we have to do is learn not to be afraid of any thought that comes to us. Yes, that’s correct. We spend so much time resisting thoughts because we think and believe (we were even taught in most cases; I have even taught this) that that is what we were supposed to do. Remember, isn’t James going to say, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (4:7, ESV)?
True resistance, however, is facing a thought even when fear is present. It is facing it with boldness, and that means facing it in the first place. Whatever thought we think, whether it is uncomfortable, unwanted, perceived as evil, whatever—the key is to face the thought by not placing any judgment on it. Let the thought play out. We don’t embrace it, and we don’t get afraid of it. We simply let it play out in our minds. We will see, after a short time, that the thought will pass. It will lose it’s steam and go away on its own because we did not embrace it in anyway. We didn’t fear the thought, we didn’t elaborate on it, we didn’t debate it out; we just viewed it with no judgment and once it saw were weren’t going to embrace it, it passed. That’s what I am talking about when I talk about giving up control, or surrendering. We try to control because we are afraid, but this consciously trying to control our thoughts really doesn’t do us any good. When we suppress a thought by getting afraid of it, it is simply just going to come back later. And that later is usually pretty quickly.
The second part to this concept is accepting whatever our lives bring to us. What does this mean? Sounds kind of scary, doesn’t it? Well, admittedly, at first glance it does. What I am talking about here though is also simple. Just like with getting out of living in a fear state, this second part is simply coming to the realization of this one fact: “nothing really matters but God.” Did you get that statement. I said, “Nothing matters but God.” That’s the key.
It’s our personal relationship with God that really, ultimately, and dare I say, only matters. Sure, we have other things that we think matters. We have our families, our careers, good reputations, wonderful possessions (things we have obtained that we wanted and worked for), our friends, our brothers and sisters, our animals, and lots of money perhaps. While all these things are great, they don’t really matter. They are all ultimately expendable. Our relationship with God, though, that’s not expendable. We want that, we need that, and we have to have it. And there is a secret behind coming to this realization—a secret you might not have expected. I’ll give you a hint—think of Job from the Old Testament.
How we react to life’s problems is highly contingent upon where we stand in the Four Levels of Inner-Self. For example, let’s take the illustration of a person who loses her job after tens years, a job which she enjoyed and highly valued. The Level One person is likely going to take this negative event from the standpoint of victimization, saying something like, “I can’t believe this has happened to me. Now my life is ruined. I’ll never find another good job.” Self-pity is predominate here. The Level Two person might say, “My company just screwed me over after all the hard work I’ve done for them. I ought to sue them. What if I can’t find another good job to replace it?” The Level Three person would respond, “This is an unfortunate thing that has happened. However, I know God is good and this is going to work out for my good. I’ll start searching for a new job right away.” The Level Four person might say, “You know, after thinking about it, I was getting kind of tired of that job anyway. Now I am going to go find an ever better job. This is a blessing in disguise. I can feel it.”
Let me provide another example here in understanding this concept of accepting what life brings us so you can have a clearer picture. Let’s consider a man who has been married for five years and his wife walks out and leaves him for another person. The man is in disbelief at first; and cannot believe that she has done this. He trusted her. After time passes, he begins to accept what has happened but becomes bitter about it, full of anger. At this point he has a choice. He can either let his anger and self-pity consume him for months or even years on end, or he can accept that fact that his wife is gone, he’s getting a divorce, he will be divorced, and will be by himself again. The key is the acceptance. By accepting the situation, and not fighting against it, this allows God to work.
Now, God can restore the person’s relationship, or he can cause them to overcome it emotionally and go on to have a good, successful life. However, if the person won’t accept what has happened, if the man was to hold on it emotionally, all kinds of destruction would be brought forth in the form of negative emotions. Over time, he would become a negative cripple, and most, if not all of God’s power would be cut off in his life. He would develop a past-centered focus, where he looked at his life from the negative point in the past where his wife left him. It would be a tremendous weight for him, and with all that weight, moving forward would become impossible.
By accepting what has transpired, the man is not only able to move forward, but to do so in the power of God’s blessing. God wants to help people, but a big part of God’s help is giving up control. The only way to give up control is to accept what has happened. A lot of people are afraid to do that—that if they do that they relinquish some power of controlling the situation to try and make it better. The reality is, though, that not giving up control and accepting the situation is what prevents it from ever getting better. It’s a mental trap to hold on. Acceptance is the only way to recovery, and the only way to God’s future blessing.
The Law of Liberty
It is my belief that only folks who are at the Third and Fourth Levels of Inner-Self can truly experience what I am going to call the Law of Liberty. James talks about it here in chapter 1 of his epistle. The reason for this is because true freedom can only be experienced when we are flowing with the river, and that only occurs in the Level Three and Four persons. In levels One and Two, the river is flowing against the stride of the individual. There is great effort in going up the river (in going through life) versus the easy and flow of going down the river with it flowing in our direction. I believe this picture here encapsulates what I am talking about with the Four Levels of Inner-Self.
Before I go on any further, it is important that we define what the Law of Liberty is. So, what is the Law of Liberty? For those of us who become Christians, we know that we become free from sin. In a religious sense, we no longer seek to follow after ways that the Bible calls sin. We believe the God of the Universe to be holy, and because he is holy, he wants us to be holy as well. The beautiful thing is, really it’s not about our works or actions in our lives. That is part of it, but really what it is all about is the fact that we believe Jesus Christ has made us holy by his sacrifice on the cross. As it pertains to our relationship with God, then, we are set free in the sin-sense, in the sense that the Holy God now accepts us completely with no reservations against us.
While we find that we identify sin and seek not to follow sinful ways, we find that we live in a universal freedom that God intended for humans to live in when he created the world. After all, God being creator of us made us so that we would live freely. It was Satan (God’s adversary; the other power being of the universe), who provided the other option, the other way to follow. And the first humans followed his way, and this begat the tendency within each one of us to follow a God-absent way—a way that does not seek to be holy in any way, shape, or form. As many people live nowadays, though, they have come to identify that just following what you want in life can really mess things up. That’s not how society and government are setup (we realize we need rules to follow in those areas) and so it is not how life works either—at least works to the best of its ability.
The beautiful thing is, is that God has provided a way for any human to live with abundant freedom. The Scripture says when God created Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, that they were allowed to eat of many different kinds of fruit that God had created there. And this principle stands true nowadays. Even in twenty-first century America, God allows more than he prohibits, and what he prohibits we find is actually for our benefit in the long run. Yes, God has provided a vast variety of options for us in our lives. There are a variety of ways we could go, and all of which are God approved. This is freedom at its core essence.
Let me elaborate to make certain that you are hearing what I am saying. I suppose, for myself, there is a variation of different of things I could do in my life, career wise, and all of which would be good for me. I have a lot of different interests, as many of you do. Right now I work in the television industry, and I am a Bible teacher on the side. These are the two primary things I do. However, my four-year degree is in psychology, and I have always loved the study of the psychology field. I suppose, instead of working in television, I could work in the field of psychology. You know, wearing a brown suit with a brown suitcase sounds kinda nice. I could be like Bob Newhart and counsel people day to day. I think I would like that. Another thing I like is history, I could see myself as a history professor—I mean, why not? That would be a lot of fun.
The point here is that there are a variety of things I could do, and all of which would be approved by God. I could do anyone of those things and not find myself outside of God’s will. This is true for other areas of life as well. I suppose I could live all different kinds of places. There are a lot of different places I like other than Ohio. I like Arizona and California, even Colorado. I could live in any of those places. I’ve not married yet (I’m in my 35th year of breathing), and I do suppose there are all different types of girls who would suit me. Does there just have to be one?
The Law of Liberty is a great thing. It means that we are free in many areas of life to do what we desire to do. Why, God has placed certain desires in our hearts, and we look for ways to fulfill those desires. Wishing for something in and of itself certainly isn’t a bad thing. It is when the wantingness becomes too strong, when the power of giving up control, or surrender, is violated that desire hurts us. We can wish for something, but we should not want it too much. We should be willing to hold onto the desire with a loose grip. If we want something too much, we end up cutting off God’s power and can even sabotage ourselves. God’s power is not with us because we are in violation of the first commandant, remember? It says, “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3, ESV).
As a Christian, an American Christian, understand in God’s bounty that you have all kinds of choices. There is no need to unnecessarily prohibit yourself of something good—unless that’s what you want to do. We have God’s freedom; we live in light of the Law of Liberty. We should live like we are. Remember, though, this positive power is really only available to the Third and Fourth Levels of Inner-Self. The Second Level can get a taste of it at times, but it doesn’t last because the life-flow is negative.
One more thing to note about the Law of Liberty. You will come to understand, as you accept this, that the second method of understanding, giving up control, actually creates more and more liberty in your life. By not allowing fearful, negative thoughts to dominate and control our thinking—to be running rampant through our minds—we come into a greater level of freedom. I mean, after all, lack of freedom is due to fear right? One only needs to look at the country of North Korea or even Russia to understand this point. The people living in those areas have less freedom because of fear of the government. Do you have less freedom in your mind because you fear things on a constant basis—because you try to control all your thoughts constantly? Or, even because you have a false view of God? Is your God like an evil, fearful dictator? When we give up control of allowing fear to rule us, we find that we experience a whole new life without the shackles of bondage.
Conclusion of the Methods
Consider all that I have said here. Really mediate on these two last thoughts I have presented here today. Learn the power of surrender that you have within yourself that you didn’t probably realize you even had. Try to get your mind in place where you can really say, “All that matters is God.” Keep these concepts in mind here as we begin our wonderful journey through the Book of James.
Study of James
James 1:1-4 state: “James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion: Greetings. Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” (ESV).
First, I want to start by asking the question, what is a trial? Let’s think of some different words we could use to place here. Test. Problem. Ordeal. Inconvenience. Bother. Difficulty. Setback. Worry. Irritant. Misfortune. Trouble. Hassle. Affliction. Thorn in my side. A cross to bear. A burden to bear. Pain. Trying time. Nightmare. Hardship. Adversity. Tragedy. Trauma. Bad luck. Bad hand dealt. I think this gives us an idea of what we’re dealing with when we talk about a trial. There are words here we can relate to that elaborate on James’ phrase of “various kinds.”
Trials—we all have had them, and we will have more in our life before we enter the next life. Yes, it is a statement of fact in our sin-affected world. It is the way it works right now. Many afflictions are small, easy to deal with, and go away pretty quickly. Others are more cumbersome. Still others have a great weight, and may last longer than we would like. We all react in different ways. These ways correspond to our consciousness level on the Inner-Self scale, which I went over last week. We can get depressed, have a lighter, negative reaction, or we can react positively, or even rise above the trial altogether.
How does James say we are to react? What is our response? He says, “Count it all joy.” In the first level of inner-self, if it is a big trial, the response is going to be something along the lines of “I am screwed. My life is over. There goes three years.” Yes, it will be something along those lines. On the second level of inner-self, it will be something like: “I cannot believe this has happened to me. Now I am in trouble and have this problem to deal with. This is such an inconvenience to me!” The third level of inner-self moves us into the positive side of things, with a response like, “This is unfortunate this has happened, but things will work out for my good. Things always end up good in the end. I know God is with me.” The greatest response, the response of the fourth level: “Am I in a trial? I know what I can do already to make this better.”
Yes, trials reveal our faith level. Do they not? The higher we are on the thinking, Inner-Self scale, the greater our faith. On the low end, we have no faith. This is not only bad for us personally, as psychologically we are miserable, but it is also bad for us spiritually. Not only are we full of gross mental distortions and defeating emotions, but because we have no faith we have no power. We have no power to help ourselves and God’s power is non-existent in this state. We don’t believe. We don’t have any positive energy. God’s hands are tied. He can’t help us. The second level of inner-self is a little bit better. We are still mostly negative. We may have a bout of positivity that lasts for a few hours, but it quickly reverts back to the dominant negative attitude. God will be a little more likely to help us, but not by much.
Our faith level in the two upper levels of inner-self allows God’s power to flow freely. When we are positive, we see the bright side of things. The presence of a trial is not an end-all. We know it can be navigated easily. We have some level of patience to endure, and we take positive action—if there is any action we need to take. We are confident within ourselves, and we are confident in God’s ability. The next level of inner-self, the top level, is where we really shine. We are not frightened at all, not in the slightest by the presence of a trial. Like Jesus asleep in the boat during the storm, we have absolutely no worries or concerns. We acknowledge the trial when we need to. Our faith is so great that we have no doubt at all that God has everything under control and all is working toward our good.
Okay, we are out of time for today. I think this beginning part of James has been really good for us, and we will continue this discussion next week about trials.
- Daniel Litton
Today’s Acknowledgements:
Psychologist David R. Hawkins, Jerry S. Eicher, and, of course, Thomas Jefferson