Study of James: The Humble vs. the Selfish
Sunday, February 02, 2020
Peace to Live By Study of James: The Humble vs. the Selfish - 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 continued along in James chapter 3, and our focus was primarily on our mouths, the things we speak. This is such an important area for us, as Christians. I mean, who wants to be around a negative person, especially a negative Christian? A negative Christian denotes that there is nothing to be gained by having a personal relationship with God. We don’t want people in lower levels of consciousness to think upon seeing us that all God adds to our lives is more negativity that has to be dealt with in the form of rules and commands. That doesn’t do anybody any good. Who is going to want that? Who is going to want to restrict freedom and have something negative? Yet, if that is what we project to the world, people aren’t going to believe in Jesus, they aren’t going to want to trust in God, and they aren’t going to be want to be around us.
Now, I understand, that eliminates those groups of people, whole bodies of churches, who are immediately disqualified from giving a fair representation of God. We see it all the time. There are those in our world who have been highly critical of Christians. They point out the hypocrisies that are immediately apparent in a lot of church-going people. This just isn’t found in the older generations either. It isn’t the Baby-boomers and the Gen X’ers who are only the offenders here, as is often believed. No, actually, there are some among the Millennials that give those folks a run for their money. Millennials can be legalistic. They can be hard to get along with. They can be very negative. They can be rule orientated and contradictory in the way they go about living their lives as well. You know some who are like this. Surely you do.
I want to present a reasonable God, a God who cares, one who is actually on our side. I want the truth of the Bible to be easy to understand, easy to implement, simple to have a relationship with God. Isn’t this what we all want? Am I crazy here? Didn’t Jesus say, ““Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light"” (Matthew 11:28-30, ESV). It was also said of Jesus, “he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things” (Mark 6:34, ESV). Yes, this what I seek to do with my ministry. I see the destruction caused by negative teachers, negative churches, and I am on mission to help those who really need God, who need compassion and strength, who need salvation from those who wish to tare them down, who wish to get them to follow after their religion.
Let us continue here in James chapter 3. Starting in verse 10: “From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? Can a fig tree, my brothers and sisters, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water.“
Today James is doubling down on what he said last week, and that is, namely, that we as Christians should not find ourselves blessing and cursing at the same time. And I said that the lower the level of consciousness, the more the cursing. The higher the level, the more the blessing. It only makes sense. And with James bringing these analogies to us, that it doesn’t make sense for the bad things and the good things to come from the same mouth, we can seek to understand just how it is that we move up from the negative side to the positive side of things. Just how is it that we becoming a more positive person? I mean, doesn’t everyone, no matter who we are, somewhere deep inside ourselves, what to become more positive? Don’t you want less stress, anxiety, and worry inside your mind?
So, how do we do this? How do we become more positive, or positive in the first place if positivity is no where to found in us? We accomplish this through a simple method. This is the method of Giving Up Control, or surrendering, that I’ve already been talking about. The reality is, we have to give up control of trying to control our thoughts, our feelings, if we really want to control them. We have to surrender the lower levels of consciousness if we want to advance to the higher levels. It’s as simple as that, and it is accomplished by surrendering one by one each level for a higher level.
Let’s take self-righteousness as our example here. I think this is a good one for us to examine for several reasons. One, it’s a reoccurring theme I think that keeps coming up in our discussions here. Two, that leads to the point that it’s a prevalent problem among Christian individuals. Three, self-righteousness often leads us to speak negatively toward others (for instance, cursing) like James is talking about in our text here. We know what self-righteousness is, but let me define it again so that there is no mistaking it. Self-righteousness in our context is when we believe our way of following the Christian life is the best way, and that all other ways are either wrong (sinful) or incomplete (lacking). It is the belief that we know best, and that if other’s don’t follow the Bible exactly as we see it, they are in the wrong, sinning against God, and sinning against us. We see this all the time among Christians.
Why is self-righteousness so destructive? Well, there are a couple reasons. The first is that this kind of attitude actually prevents Christian growth. Think about it. If we are proud of where we currently stand in our Christian walk, or in how our church stands in comparison to other churches, that we really have things down and others do not, it is impossible to grow because, again, our group of people already has things down. If you already know what you’re doing, there is nothing new to learn, nothing new to implement, nowhere new to go. We have already arrived. Second, this kind of pride is bad because in the belief among the church members that they’ve already arrived, there is then the belief that they have the right to judge others who do things differently, of whom they feel do not follow God correctly. Let me pull back the curtain a second for dramatic affect. We see far-right evangelical churches attack the Methodists and Presbyterians. “They’ve left the correct way. We have the real way” it is said.
So, what is the opposite of self-righteousness? Well, I would say the opposite is love, namely, love of God and love of self. Both of these areas (love of God and love of self) need to be in order if we are going to love others. It’s just the way it is, and a lot of people don’t realize this fact.
What, then, has to be surrendered in order to get rid of self-righteousness?First, a person needs to stop caring about what other people think. That is an easy way to identify a self-righteous person, isn’t it? The self-righteous individual is always concerned about being criticized. They try to cover all the bases, to make their argument bulletproof so that on one can successfully attack them. But what happens? This eagerness to be right is the very thing that brings on the attack. This wantingness blocks the person from actually making them right and instead makes them come out on the other end, the wrong end. And it all stems from a fear of what other people think, a worry over what another will say.
When we stop caring what other people think, we speak positive truth which benefits others. Because we haven’t spoken in such a way that forces the truth on others, this allows for people to accept what we say. Even if a person doesn’t accept it, they don’t criticize us because of the way in which we have stated our position. If our attitude is shown from the inner motive of really wanting to help others versus the apparent motive that we just want to be right and win the argument, then people respect what we have to say. We can even take truths from the Bible, take certain positions and what not, and present those positions in a way that is not offensive to others. Anytime we try to force our beliefs on others it will not work. People will naturally resist, even if we are right in what we are saying.
What is the second thing that needs to be surrendered in regard to self-righteousness? It’s that uncomfortable vibe, that lack of warmth, the absence of easygoingness. We might call it severity. There are certain churches you can go into and you will immediately feel uncomfortable. Why? Well, there is self-righteousness present; I guarantee you. Wherever you find a lack of comfort among believers you find self-righteousness. It’s an amusing thing, isn’t it, once you come to this realization? It’s amusing until people get hurt. Then it’s not funny anymore. Another identifier of the severity is a lack of communication. So, a lack of comfort and a lack of communication. Self-righteous people don’t communicate. They don’t communicate because they are better than you, have superior knowledge over you, and therefore don’t have to. You’re not worthy of being in on their secret communications.
The third thing that would be helpful to surrender is that feeling of worthlessness due to the realization of one’s sin-nature. Remember, we are new creations in Jesus. That being the case, while at one time we were run and controlled by our sin nature and had no power to truly overcome it, now we do have power. However, to some this fact has been lost or forgotten. So, self-righteousness can be used to help a person feel better about themselves. The low self-worth from a person requires them to rely on what they perceive as their correct external behavior after becoming a Christian. They compare themselves with those who do not identify as a Christian, or at least closely as one, and say, “Yes, I am doing better compared to them.” This, however, is a prideful attitude. The belief is that the good works qualify the person to a certain spiritual status and these have to be depended on because of the belief that one is worthless due to having a sin-nature.
Continuing on in James chapter 3. Verse 13: “Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice.”
James brings up here meekness. This is the opposite of self-righteousness. What is meekness exactly? We could say meekness is mildness, timidness, or even easygoingness. We are to move away from the temptation then to see ourselves as great because of a recognition of our own humility. In other words, in realizing that we are humble, we can create a prideful attitude in the thought that, “Yes, I am a humble person. Therefore, I am truly great.” Now we have taken pride in our humility. We see a move toward transparency in a lot of areas in our world. People want others to be more transparent. And the truth is, that the truly meek person does not fear the revealing of anything about his or her character or past. This is because the strong desire to be seen in a positive light by everyone in the world has been surrendered. In Giving Up Control in this area, the person has no fear of being outed about anything and therefore never is because their meekness has made itself apparent to others.
The person who is truly humble has no need to brag about what he or she does. What they do will become manifest to others naturally. If a person is bragging, James points out to us that there must be something wrong. Surely the works for God are being done with a wrong motive. A person who brags about this or that accomplishment surely lacks the real thing. If the real thing were there, there would be no need to brag, right? I mean, it is common sense once you stop and think about it. Nor is a person who is wise, meek, and not bragging defending the works they do. There is no need to uphold this or that because the goodness of the effort, again, shows forth automatically. People, deep down, know oftentimes whether a person is doing something from the heart or whether the person is just putting on a good show. Sometimes it can be harder to tell, but give it time and it will become obvious to all.
Wasn’t this Lucifer’s problem? This was how he rebelled against God. The self-righteous attitude is demonic because self-righteousness is based on superficial things, and it is not grounded in the truth. We are all good because God has made us good in Jesus. We are all equal on that plane. Whatever our giftings are, whether they be natural in us (that is, inborn within us) or whether they be giftings by the Spirit, these things were given to us. Yes, we get to decide what to do with the gifts, but the gifts were given to us, so it is foolish for one to say that he or she is better than another as a result of the gifts. That comes from the worldly person, the person who doesn’t understand things pertaining to God and his giftings.
The reality is, we should be thankful for all of God’s blessings toward us, again, whether they be natural or spiritual. This takes away the pressure that can come to us when we feel we need to be like someone else, or do what they do, or do as good a job as they do. We do what God has placed in our hearts to do, and we do it to the best of our ability. This is what makes God happy. Really, what we have been given are gifts, as they are called, and since they are gifts, we didn’t earn them. As the Apostle Paul has told us, if we earned something we would get to brag about it. Remember that? We, however, didn’t earn these gifts, but rather they were given to us by our loving Heavenly Father. God gives to each of us as he pleases, and each of us therefore has special areas were we excel. We should embrace those areas then with an awareness and mildness that they come from Above.
James brings up both jealously and selfish ambition. Why are these two particular sins so destructive? Let’s look at jealousy first. This is a sin that I think all of us suffer with from time to time, and it should be one that we are seeking to eliminate from our lives. Jealously is really a worldly thing. We are jealous of someone because either we want what they have or we don’t think they should have what they have. In the former case, we are already at a disadvantage because we are comparing ourselves with others. Why are we comparing? If we are comparing ourselves with others it is due to the fact that we want more in our life and are feeling inadequate. That being the case, we aren’t surrendered to an overall attitude of wantingness. We should be happy when people succeed in whatever it is, happy for them, and not jealous of whatever it is. If we are jealous, we truly display to others how selfish we really are.
This is where selfish ambition comes into the picture. It is true that we are free. It’s what I’ve been talking about with the Law of Liberty. God has given freedom to Christians to pick and choose many things. Interestingly enough, the way we really get what we want is be deciding on a goal beforehand, and then surrendering the feeling of wantingness for whatever it is. By surrendering the wantingness, by this act of Giving Up Control, we see that what we desire automatically comes into our life in due time. On the flip side, we can use selfish ambition to try to achieve these wants and goals in our lives. The problem is, is that we don’t need to have ambition to get what we want. That is a common misunderstanding for how things really work. Selfish ambition only makes things harder and more difficult. It causes us to do this and that, to try this method and that method, only to find that we are right back at the beginning where we started. No, we get what we want by choosing it first and then giving up the desire for it.
Selfish ambition leads us to do things that we shouldn’t do, or normally wouldn’t do if we weren’t driven by such a strong craving for whatever it is. People can lie, steal, cheat, rob, change the rules, escalate, bribe, extort, launder, go against good wisdom, sell out, compromise, or whatever it is, for selfish ambition. On a more smaller scale, people can gossip, exclude, dishonor, show favoritism, speak negatively, gab, speak behind our backs, be narrow minded, act uncaring, disinterested, and unkind. It is very important that our feelings of wantingness for anything be totally surrendered. This is not only for our mental well-being, it is for our obedience to God, and (don’t miss this), it is so that in the end we will get what we really want. You can accomplish this and that through selfish ambition. There is no doubt about that. People do it all the time. The thing of it is, it is just not necessary. American society often tells us that the way we get what we want is by working hard toward whatever it is. Is this how God operates? Well, in taking a close observation, we see that “No, it is not.” Just look at Abraham, or David, or Peter, or Paul. Did any of these people achieve their important positions with God through selfish ambition? No, they were chosen by God. They didn’t do a thing. This is how God operates.
Finally, James says here to end chapter 3: “But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.”
In actuality, there are two kinds of wisdom. There is the kind that James previously talked about, the earthly wisdom. Then there is the above wisdom, which he is now referring to. Notice that the characteristics of the person of the right attitude are found in the Level Three and Level Four Christian. It is the the Positive Existence and the Above State that we are to arrive at. Here are the terms again: first purity, then peace-loving, gentleness, reasonable, mercy-filled, good deeds-filled, not biased, and genuine. These are the good characteristics. Just out of curiosity, let’s do a scripture reversal here and see what the bad person looks like. He or she is one who is first impure, then sows disharmony, harsh, unreasonable, full of judgement and bad fruits, biased and counterfeit. That gives us a clear picture I think of what we aren’t to be like. Which person matches our current characteristics better? Is it the person James talks about, or is it the bad person? Perhaps there is a mixture both. Either way, James tells us here what we are to be like.
Pure wisdom is that wisdom which does not contain any aspects of this world—any worldly philosophy that does not align with Jesus. If we take the truth and change it, or disregard it, we no longer have true wisdom. We have our version of what we think is right, rather than leaving that up to God. Indeed, he has told us of his wisdom in the Bible. That’s one reason it’s important for us to be familiar with our Bibles so that we know what God is excepting from us, as Christians. If don’t know what is in the Bible, how can we be obedient to it? How will we know when our friend is telling us to just get a divorce or to sue someone that they’re in the wrong? Perhaps we won’t if we’re not familiar with how God wants us to act.
Peace then is the ultimate goal. It is one of the characteristics of the Level Four Christian. When we act peaceful toward others, we are not displaying an attitude of pride. Really, pride is the opposite of peace. We cannot be peaceful and prideful at the same time. If we are prideful, it is because we have unaddressed fear and guilt larking inside ourselves. The fear is there because we are afraid that if we don’t put on a great presentation, who we really are will be found out. The guilt is there because the very fact that we are displaying pride means we don’t have a good sense within ourselves of our self-worth. We are insecure and the pride makes us feel secure. Our real self isn’t good enough as it stands in our eyes so we have to puff it up falsely, and this is accomplished through pride.
We can love others out of our peaceful drive, and whether or not they reciprocate is not important to us. We don’t force our peace on others; if they don’t want it, we let them go. In our following of God then, in our relationship with God, people recognize our true sense of peace and see that our faith is genuine. No one questions us because we don’t have that false presentation of ourselves that is based on pride—merely looking perfect so that we can feel awesome about ourselves and for the hope that others will feel that we are awesome. If we are faking our religion, we will have to protect it when people question us. Really, though, if we are a true person of the faith, will anyone question that what we have is real? People will see that we love God, ourselves, and others, by our sheer enjoyment. This is our righteous harvest.
- Daniel Litton
Today’s Acknowledgements:
Psychologist David R. Hawkins
I hope everyone is doing well today.
Last week we continued along in James chapter 3, and our focus was primarily on our mouths, the things we speak. This is such an important area for us, as Christians. I mean, who wants to be around a negative person, especially a negative Christian? A negative Christian denotes that there is nothing to be gained by having a personal relationship with God. We don’t want people in lower levels of consciousness to think upon seeing us that all God adds to our lives is more negativity that has to be dealt with in the form of rules and commands. That doesn’t do anybody any good. Who is going to want that? Who is going to want to restrict freedom and have something negative? Yet, if that is what we project to the world, people aren’t going to believe in Jesus, they aren’t going to want to trust in God, and they aren’t going to be want to be around us.
Now, I understand, that eliminates those groups of people, whole bodies of churches, who are immediately disqualified from giving a fair representation of God. We see it all the time. There are those in our world who have been highly critical of Christians. They point out the hypocrisies that are immediately apparent in a lot of church-going people. This just isn’t found in the older generations either. It isn’t the Baby-boomers and the Gen X’ers who are only the offenders here, as is often believed. No, actually, there are some among the Millennials that give those folks a run for their money. Millennials can be legalistic. They can be hard to get along with. They can be very negative. They can be rule orientated and contradictory in the way they go about living their lives as well. You know some who are like this. Surely you do.
I want to present a reasonable God, a God who cares, one who is actually on our side. I want the truth of the Bible to be easy to understand, easy to implement, simple to have a relationship with God. Isn’t this what we all want? Am I crazy here? Didn’t Jesus say, ““Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light"” (Matthew 11:28-30, ESV). It was also said of Jesus, “he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things” (Mark 6:34, ESV). Yes, this what I seek to do with my ministry. I see the destruction caused by negative teachers, negative churches, and I am on mission to help those who really need God, who need compassion and strength, who need salvation from those who wish to tare them down, who wish to get them to follow after their religion.
Let us continue here in James chapter 3. Starting in verse 10: “From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? Can a fig tree, my brothers and sisters, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water.“
Today James is doubling down on what he said last week, and that is, namely, that we as Christians should not find ourselves blessing and cursing at the same time. And I said that the lower the level of consciousness, the more the cursing. The higher the level, the more the blessing. It only makes sense. And with James bringing these analogies to us, that it doesn’t make sense for the bad things and the good things to come from the same mouth, we can seek to understand just how it is that we move up from the negative side to the positive side of things. Just how is it that we becoming a more positive person? I mean, doesn’t everyone, no matter who we are, somewhere deep inside ourselves, what to become more positive? Don’t you want less stress, anxiety, and worry inside your mind?
So, how do we do this? How do we become more positive, or positive in the first place if positivity is no where to found in us? We accomplish this through a simple method. This is the method of Giving Up Control, or surrendering, that I’ve already been talking about. The reality is, we have to give up control of trying to control our thoughts, our feelings, if we really want to control them. We have to surrender the lower levels of consciousness if we want to advance to the higher levels. It’s as simple as that, and it is accomplished by surrendering one by one each level for a higher level.
Let’s take self-righteousness as our example here. I think this is a good one for us to examine for several reasons. One, it’s a reoccurring theme I think that keeps coming up in our discussions here. Two, that leads to the point that it’s a prevalent problem among Christian individuals. Three, self-righteousness often leads us to speak negatively toward others (for instance, cursing) like James is talking about in our text here. We know what self-righteousness is, but let me define it again so that there is no mistaking it. Self-righteousness in our context is when we believe our way of following the Christian life is the best way, and that all other ways are either wrong (sinful) or incomplete (lacking). It is the belief that we know best, and that if other’s don’t follow the Bible exactly as we see it, they are in the wrong, sinning against God, and sinning against us. We see this all the time among Christians.
Why is self-righteousness so destructive? Well, there are a couple reasons. The first is that this kind of attitude actually prevents Christian growth. Think about it. If we are proud of where we currently stand in our Christian walk, or in how our church stands in comparison to other churches, that we really have things down and others do not, it is impossible to grow because, again, our group of people already has things down. If you already know what you’re doing, there is nothing new to learn, nothing new to implement, nowhere new to go. We have already arrived. Second, this kind of pride is bad because in the belief among the church members that they’ve already arrived, there is then the belief that they have the right to judge others who do things differently, of whom they feel do not follow God correctly. Let me pull back the curtain a second for dramatic affect. We see far-right evangelical churches attack the Methodists and Presbyterians. “They’ve left the correct way. We have the real way” it is said.
So, what is the opposite of self-righteousness? Well, I would say the opposite is love, namely, love of God and love of self. Both of these areas (love of God and love of self) need to be in order if we are going to love others. It’s just the way it is, and a lot of people don’t realize this fact.
What, then, has to be surrendered in order to get rid of self-righteousness?First, a person needs to stop caring about what other people think. That is an easy way to identify a self-righteous person, isn’t it? The self-righteous individual is always concerned about being criticized. They try to cover all the bases, to make their argument bulletproof so that on one can successfully attack them. But what happens? This eagerness to be right is the very thing that brings on the attack. This wantingness blocks the person from actually making them right and instead makes them come out on the other end, the wrong end. And it all stems from a fear of what other people think, a worry over what another will say.
When we stop caring what other people think, we speak positive truth which benefits others. Because we haven’t spoken in such a way that forces the truth on others, this allows for people to accept what we say. Even if a person doesn’t accept it, they don’t criticize us because of the way in which we have stated our position. If our attitude is shown from the inner motive of really wanting to help others versus the apparent motive that we just want to be right and win the argument, then people respect what we have to say. We can even take truths from the Bible, take certain positions and what not, and present those positions in a way that is not offensive to others. Anytime we try to force our beliefs on others it will not work. People will naturally resist, even if we are right in what we are saying.
What is the second thing that needs to be surrendered in regard to self-righteousness? It’s that uncomfortable vibe, that lack of warmth, the absence of easygoingness. We might call it severity. There are certain churches you can go into and you will immediately feel uncomfortable. Why? Well, there is self-righteousness present; I guarantee you. Wherever you find a lack of comfort among believers you find self-righteousness. It’s an amusing thing, isn’t it, once you come to this realization? It’s amusing until people get hurt. Then it’s not funny anymore. Another identifier of the severity is a lack of communication. So, a lack of comfort and a lack of communication. Self-righteous people don’t communicate. They don’t communicate because they are better than you, have superior knowledge over you, and therefore don’t have to. You’re not worthy of being in on their secret communications.
The third thing that would be helpful to surrender is that feeling of worthlessness due to the realization of one’s sin-nature. Remember, we are new creations in Jesus. That being the case, while at one time we were run and controlled by our sin nature and had no power to truly overcome it, now we do have power. However, to some this fact has been lost or forgotten. So, self-righteousness can be used to help a person feel better about themselves. The low self-worth from a person requires them to rely on what they perceive as their correct external behavior after becoming a Christian. They compare themselves with those who do not identify as a Christian, or at least closely as one, and say, “Yes, I am doing better compared to them.” This, however, is a prideful attitude. The belief is that the good works qualify the person to a certain spiritual status and these have to be depended on because of the belief that one is worthless due to having a sin-nature.
Continuing on in James chapter 3. Verse 13: “Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice.”
James brings up here meekness. This is the opposite of self-righteousness. What is meekness exactly? We could say meekness is mildness, timidness, or even easygoingness. We are to move away from the temptation then to see ourselves as great because of a recognition of our own humility. In other words, in realizing that we are humble, we can create a prideful attitude in the thought that, “Yes, I am a humble person. Therefore, I am truly great.” Now we have taken pride in our humility. We see a move toward transparency in a lot of areas in our world. People want others to be more transparent. And the truth is, that the truly meek person does not fear the revealing of anything about his or her character or past. This is because the strong desire to be seen in a positive light by everyone in the world has been surrendered. In Giving Up Control in this area, the person has no fear of being outed about anything and therefore never is because their meekness has made itself apparent to others.
The person who is truly humble has no need to brag about what he or she does. What they do will become manifest to others naturally. If a person is bragging, James points out to us that there must be something wrong. Surely the works for God are being done with a wrong motive. A person who brags about this or that accomplishment surely lacks the real thing. If the real thing were there, there would be no need to brag, right? I mean, it is common sense once you stop and think about it. Nor is a person who is wise, meek, and not bragging defending the works they do. There is no need to uphold this or that because the goodness of the effort, again, shows forth automatically. People, deep down, know oftentimes whether a person is doing something from the heart or whether the person is just putting on a good show. Sometimes it can be harder to tell, but give it time and it will become obvious to all.
Wasn’t this Lucifer’s problem? This was how he rebelled against God. The self-righteous attitude is demonic because self-righteousness is based on superficial things, and it is not grounded in the truth. We are all good because God has made us good in Jesus. We are all equal on that plane. Whatever our giftings are, whether they be natural in us (that is, inborn within us) or whether they be giftings by the Spirit, these things were given to us. Yes, we get to decide what to do with the gifts, but the gifts were given to us, so it is foolish for one to say that he or she is better than another as a result of the gifts. That comes from the worldly person, the person who doesn’t understand things pertaining to God and his giftings.
The reality is, we should be thankful for all of God’s blessings toward us, again, whether they be natural or spiritual. This takes away the pressure that can come to us when we feel we need to be like someone else, or do what they do, or do as good a job as they do. We do what God has placed in our hearts to do, and we do it to the best of our ability. This is what makes God happy. Really, what we have been given are gifts, as they are called, and since they are gifts, we didn’t earn them. As the Apostle Paul has told us, if we earned something we would get to brag about it. Remember that? We, however, didn’t earn these gifts, but rather they were given to us by our loving Heavenly Father. God gives to each of us as he pleases, and each of us therefore has special areas were we excel. We should embrace those areas then with an awareness and mildness that they come from Above.
James brings up both jealously and selfish ambition. Why are these two particular sins so destructive? Let’s look at jealousy first. This is a sin that I think all of us suffer with from time to time, and it should be one that we are seeking to eliminate from our lives. Jealously is really a worldly thing. We are jealous of someone because either we want what they have or we don’t think they should have what they have. In the former case, we are already at a disadvantage because we are comparing ourselves with others. Why are we comparing? If we are comparing ourselves with others it is due to the fact that we want more in our life and are feeling inadequate. That being the case, we aren’t surrendered to an overall attitude of wantingness. We should be happy when people succeed in whatever it is, happy for them, and not jealous of whatever it is. If we are jealous, we truly display to others how selfish we really are.
This is where selfish ambition comes into the picture. It is true that we are free. It’s what I’ve been talking about with the Law of Liberty. God has given freedom to Christians to pick and choose many things. Interestingly enough, the way we really get what we want is be deciding on a goal beforehand, and then surrendering the feeling of wantingness for whatever it is. By surrendering the wantingness, by this act of Giving Up Control, we see that what we desire automatically comes into our life in due time. On the flip side, we can use selfish ambition to try to achieve these wants and goals in our lives. The problem is, is that we don’t need to have ambition to get what we want. That is a common misunderstanding for how things really work. Selfish ambition only makes things harder and more difficult. It causes us to do this and that, to try this method and that method, only to find that we are right back at the beginning where we started. No, we get what we want by choosing it first and then giving up the desire for it.
Selfish ambition leads us to do things that we shouldn’t do, or normally wouldn’t do if we weren’t driven by such a strong craving for whatever it is. People can lie, steal, cheat, rob, change the rules, escalate, bribe, extort, launder, go against good wisdom, sell out, compromise, or whatever it is, for selfish ambition. On a more smaller scale, people can gossip, exclude, dishonor, show favoritism, speak negatively, gab, speak behind our backs, be narrow minded, act uncaring, disinterested, and unkind. It is very important that our feelings of wantingness for anything be totally surrendered. This is not only for our mental well-being, it is for our obedience to God, and (don’t miss this), it is so that in the end we will get what we really want. You can accomplish this and that through selfish ambition. There is no doubt about that. People do it all the time. The thing of it is, it is just not necessary. American society often tells us that the way we get what we want is by working hard toward whatever it is. Is this how God operates? Well, in taking a close observation, we see that “No, it is not.” Just look at Abraham, or David, or Peter, or Paul. Did any of these people achieve their important positions with God through selfish ambition? No, they were chosen by God. They didn’t do a thing. This is how God operates.
Finally, James says here to end chapter 3: “But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.”
In actuality, there are two kinds of wisdom. There is the kind that James previously talked about, the earthly wisdom. Then there is the above wisdom, which he is now referring to. Notice that the characteristics of the person of the right attitude are found in the Level Three and Level Four Christian. It is the the Positive Existence and the Above State that we are to arrive at. Here are the terms again: first purity, then peace-loving, gentleness, reasonable, mercy-filled, good deeds-filled, not biased, and genuine. These are the good characteristics. Just out of curiosity, let’s do a scripture reversal here and see what the bad person looks like. He or she is one who is first impure, then sows disharmony, harsh, unreasonable, full of judgement and bad fruits, biased and counterfeit. That gives us a clear picture I think of what we aren’t to be like. Which person matches our current characteristics better? Is it the person James talks about, or is it the bad person? Perhaps there is a mixture both. Either way, James tells us here what we are to be like.
Pure wisdom is that wisdom which does not contain any aspects of this world—any worldly philosophy that does not align with Jesus. If we take the truth and change it, or disregard it, we no longer have true wisdom. We have our version of what we think is right, rather than leaving that up to God. Indeed, he has told us of his wisdom in the Bible. That’s one reason it’s important for us to be familiar with our Bibles so that we know what God is excepting from us, as Christians. If don’t know what is in the Bible, how can we be obedient to it? How will we know when our friend is telling us to just get a divorce or to sue someone that they’re in the wrong? Perhaps we won’t if we’re not familiar with how God wants us to act.
Peace then is the ultimate goal. It is one of the characteristics of the Level Four Christian. When we act peaceful toward others, we are not displaying an attitude of pride. Really, pride is the opposite of peace. We cannot be peaceful and prideful at the same time. If we are prideful, it is because we have unaddressed fear and guilt larking inside ourselves. The fear is there because we are afraid that if we don’t put on a great presentation, who we really are will be found out. The guilt is there because the very fact that we are displaying pride means we don’t have a good sense within ourselves of our self-worth. We are insecure and the pride makes us feel secure. Our real self isn’t good enough as it stands in our eyes so we have to puff it up falsely, and this is accomplished through pride.
We can love others out of our peaceful drive, and whether or not they reciprocate is not important to us. We don’t force our peace on others; if they don’t want it, we let them go. In our following of God then, in our relationship with God, people recognize our true sense of peace and see that our faith is genuine. No one questions us because we don’t have that false presentation of ourselves that is based on pride—merely looking perfect so that we can feel awesome about ourselves and for the hope that others will feel that we are awesome. If we are faking our religion, we will have to protect it when people question us. Really, though, if we are a true person of the faith, will anyone question that what we have is real? People will see that we love God, ourselves, and others, by our sheer enjoyment. This is our righteous harvest.
- Daniel Litton
Today’s Acknowledgements:
Psychologist David R. Hawkins