Hebrrews 4:11

Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest, so that no one will fall, through {following} the same example of disobedience.

“I am so tired,” is a chorus that is song by people all over the world today. Sometimes they just mean that they are physically tired and wanting to go to bed. They cannot wait to have their activities of the day done just so that they can crawl into their warm blankets and have blissful sleep. People are ready for bed from the moment they wake up sometimes. The fact of the matter is that all of us are seeking a rest, a break from our lives.

Some people are just tired of the daily grind. When they think of rest and relaxation a vacation comes to mind. They plan their trip months in advance. They hold back a large amount of money in order to afford their relaxation. On top of that, they have to earn the right to have vacation from work. They have to work so many days before they are allowed to take vacation. Some companies have time off proportional to time worked. They understand that by sacrificing and working hard now, they can rest later.

Such is the life of a Christian. We are tired. Life is tiresome in and of itself. God created us to desire a resting place, a home that we can cease from our earthly labors. That place is heaven. However, in order to receive the rest, we must put in our work first. We must discipline ourselves to work now so that we can enjoy our rest later. While this life may tiring and frustrating at times, the resting place that is awaiting us will be worth whatever it is we sacrifice now.

Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest, so that no one will fall, through {following} the same example of disobedience.

Matthew 5:3

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Being poor in spirit consists of three things. The main idea conveyed in a poor spirit is a humble spirit. It is one who submits itself to God. First of all it obeys the word of God. The proud heart says that it knows the ways that are best and that it can choose for itself what is righteous. The humble man admits that he does not know as much as God. He will submit to God’s commands even when he does not understand why he should. He trusts God’s wisdom over his own.

The humble heart is also willing to beg for forgiveness. Many people would say that they would never beg for anything. They are not willing to ask for help. Even worse they are not able to admit wrong doing. It is important that we remain humble enough to ask for forgiveness. When we sin against God, we should be willing to go to him and do whatever it takes in order to be right with him again.

Finally there is a certain humility in acknowledging you even need Christ. The Pharisees refused to see their own sin. They could not entertain the thought that they too were sinners in need of God’s forgiveness. Because of this arrogance they treated Jesus with disrespect and contempt. We need to remember that without God we are nothing. We have to rely solely on Him. This thought should cause us to have a sense of thanksgiving. After all, we were forgiven a debt we would never be able to repay.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 23:23

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others.

Everybody today is so busy. The run to and fro without much time to spare. It is rather ironic that we have all this technology that does things at the speed of light, and yet we seem to have less free time than those before us. What is really interesting is to ask people what they are busy with. Sometimes it is work. Sometimes it their spiritual walk. But sometimes it is just peripherals. They get overwhelmed with all these small and often times unimportant tasks and it causes them to not have time for things like Bible study or prayer.

It is easy for us to lose track of our priorities. Sometimes the most urgent thing is not always the most important thing. Yet because it is urgent we give it the priority. When this starts to happen, we need to re-evaluate our priorities. We need to make sure that we put first things first. We might find that if we prioritize correctly that we had more free time than we thought, and we are able to accomplish more than we had previously realized.

The Pharisees had this problem as well. They were focused on spiritual things, like making sure the tithed to the grain on spices. Yet they ignored the central aspects of what it means to be a follower of God. They made no time for faith or mercy. They instead focused their attention on worldly things and on small spiritual matters. We can get caught up doing the same thing today. While it is important to pay attention to the details in serving God, we need to give adequate time to the most important aspects. Otherwise we will find ourselves utterly lacking as servants of God.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others.

1 Corinthians 6:20

For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.

In pro sports, there can often be a problem between competing sponsors. In basketball for example, the sponsor of the league clashes with the sponsers of individual players. Let us pretend that our fake shoe company called “Flyaway” sponsored a professional sports league. However, the other psuedo-company, “Quickstart” represented a famous player. This famous player would be expected to wear Quickstart’s equipment for the games, garnering them a large quantity of publicity.

Flyaway would quickly complain to the league. They signed a contract with league saying that they would be the brand advertised. When they bought this contract, they expected the league to represent them. The last thing they want is a competitor to be advertised instead. So the league is expected to keep their end of the contract, not allowing the players to publicly advertise that merchandise during the games. This may make the players and Quickstart unhappy, but this is what the league must do because their ad time had been already purchased.

This is analagous to when we are bought by Christ. He has become our sponsor and our owner. As we are walking every day, we are advertising to the world about who we are. Having been bought by Christ, it is unfair for us to “advertise” for Satan. When we live according to the flesh, we are actually supporting Satan and his cause. We have no right to do that because we have been bought at a price. God deserves our undivided loyalty. We must support His cause in all that we do.

For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.

Matthew 12:35

“The good man brings out of {his} good treasure what is good; and the evil man brings out of {his} evil treasure what is evil.

In our day to day lives, it is easy to get distracted from noticing our spiritual well being. It can even be days before we try to check the tempature of our faith to see if it is healthy. Even when we make a pointed effort at seeing our heart we are not sure how to guage it. Are we spiritually strong or are we struggling? If we do not know the answer to this question, we are not able to get better. We must understand where we are before we can get to where we want to go.

Jesus outlines a clear and easy plan to test our hearts. Look at your actions, and particularly the things that come out of your mouth. Are we using our mouths to glorify God? We should be praising Him constantly. We should also be spreading the word about Him. We need to teach His ways. If we are doing these things then that is a positive sign. However if we find our speech is filled with gossip, lies and unwholesomeness than we should see that we are lacking in the spiritual realm.

On top of evaluating our words, we can also test our actions. If we are living according to the Spirit, then we know that our hearts belong to God. If we live according to the flesh, our hearts lie elsewhere. These tests are how we know where we stand spiritually. Our outward actions are often times a reflection of our inward make-up. As long as we are not just pretending to be righteous, our actions serve as view to our hearts. When we act sinfully, it is because there is sin in our hearts. We must remove it with all haste.

“The good man brings out of {his} good treasure what is good; and the evil man brings out of {his} evil treasure what is evil.

James 2:22

You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected;

The perfect example of faith culminating in works is Abraham. In Genesis 15 we see that Abraham is promised a son from Sarah and that this son would be the the heir to the promise of God. It was through this son that God would make Abraham a father of many nations. When God gave Abraham this promise we are told that Abraham believes the promise, and that faith is credited to him as righteousness.

What is intersting though is that James does not use the time of the promise as the example of Abraham’s faith. He uses the fact that Abraham was willing to sacrifice Isaac. It is from this example that he proves that faith is only acceptable when accompanied with works. Abraham’s faith was shown in that he was willing to sacrifice the son that God promised Him, even though he did not understand exactly how God would provide for it. It was in his actions that he proved the faith that was talked about earlier.

In the same way, our faith is only proved through action today. When we say that we believe in God and his promises, it must be more than saying we believe. We must also carry through with our actions. Our lives need to be carrying out the actions God commands. Do we believe that God will give eternal life for those follow Him? Do we trust His promise that heaven is greater than anything we have yet to experience? If so, it will show up not just in our words, but in our lives also.

You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected;

James 4:9

Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom.

It seems odd that a Biblical writer would command people to be miserable. After all the gospel message is a beacon of hope. It is good news in a troubled world. We see elsewhere that we are to rejoice in the Lord always (Phil. 4:4). The Bible is quite often a positive and up-beat book. It speaks of love and mercy, forgiveness and peace. So why do we see a command to do what is so often considered negative today?

While the Bible is a message of great hope, there is also a darker side to the message. Jesus Himself had to be harsh at times when dealing with people. He threw over tables, and called people names. While Jesus himself was the light of the world, He also had a hard job. Before anyone can be saved and receive God’s mercy and joy, they first must acknowledge their sin. Without acknowledging sin, we have no need of God’s forgiveness. So while a large part of the message is what will happen after you repent, there is still some devoted to that “negative” side.

That is why James needs to compel people to mourn. They need to realize the scope of their sin. They have defiled themselves before the Almight God. They have offended the Creator of the Universe. The have disregarded the One who has brought salvation to them. Think about how terrible any one of those things would be by itself. It becomes worse when you combine them all together. All James tells us is that when we see our sin, we should see what terrible things we have done. Recognition of our evil should bring about great sorrow and mourning. That is the only way to receive God’s forgiveness.

Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom.

James 5:13

Is anyone among you suffering? {Then} he must pray. Is anyone cheerful? He is to sing praises.

There is no time that we should not go to God. James tells us that if we have blessings in our lives, we should sing praises to God. We must take the time to acknowledge what He has done for us. At the same time, if we are suffering, we need to go to Him in prayer. After all He is a loving and powerful God. Even if there is no one else we can turn to for help, we can always go to Him. The point James is trying to stress is that we should remember God no matter the circumstances.

When we have trials and tribulations it is easy to ignore God. Some people try to blame God. The problem with blaming God is that it puts a wall between you and Him. That makes it difficult to talk with Him about what is ailing you. Also, when times get tough, some people want to be independent. They want to fix the problems themselves. All of their attention goes inward, trying to rely on their abilities to receive an answer. We need to remember that anytime suffering hits, our first response should be to go to God.

When things are easy and we have great blessings in our lives, it is easy to forget about God. Some people will take God for granted in these circumstances. The only time they think about God is when they need something from Him. When life is going well, that need evaporates. So instead of being thankful to God, they ignore Him. The exact opposite should be true. When we have the blessing of God, we need to offer Him praise for all of the love He has shown us.

Is anyone among you suffering? {Then} he must pray. Is anyone cheerful? He is to sing praises.

Job 42:12

The LORD blessed the latter {days} of Job more than his beginning; and he had 14,000 sheep and 6,000 camels and 1,000 yoke of oxen and 1,000 female donkeys.

The story of Job is of great encouragement to Christians during struggling times. We see that Job was a righteous man whose riches exceeded that of any other man. God even brags about the faithfulness of Job to Satan. However Satan challenges God and says that Job’s faithfulness is only because God has given Job so many good things. God allows Satan to take away Job’s possessions, knowing that Job will remain faithful.

Job does indeed remain faithful. After finding out about all of the things that he had lost, he immediately bows down and praises God. While he does question God about why this is happening, he never goes so far as to sin against God. God rewards him for his faithfulness. If you compare Job 1 to the verse shown above, you’ll see that God doubled the possessions that Job originally had.

This story was written down as a type for us. Christians will undoubtedly face hard times in their walk through life. When they do though, they can take courage from Job. We know that God will reward those who remain faithful to Him regardless of the circumstances. While our blessings may be given to us in this life, in the next life we will be granted spiritual blessing beyond measure. Our faithfulness will also be rewarded.

The LORD blessed the latter {days} of Job more than his beginning; and he had 14,000 sheep and 6,000 camels and 1,000 yoke of oxen and 1,000 female donkeys.

Joshua 24:15

And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve hte Lord.

Everyone today wants a easy solution to their problems. Look at the field of weight loss. There are thousand’s of quick fix weight loss plans. Why are there so many? Because people are willing to buy them. They promise a secret potion that will cause them to loose weight and look like a super model. However, if you read the fine print carefully you’ll see that such drastic results are not typical. Many people come away disappointed because they never got the results they thought they would.

People do not just look for magic potions when it comes to weight loss. There are get rich quick schemes for people looking to shortcut their way to financial gain. For emotional wellness people look at all these quick solution self-help books. The spiritual realm is no different. People want to find a “righteousness pill”. They hope there is some way they can force feed holiness into their lives. Eating in the spiritual realm people are looking for a secret potion to make their troubles go away.

Unfortunately, for such people no potion exists. There is no way to short circuit the process. While we would like it to be some mystical solution that overtakes us and forces us to do good, it is actually much simpler than that. In order to be righteous we must choose to be righteous. Every day, every decision is an opportunity for us to do good or to do evil. If we are unrighteous, it is not because we don’t have the secret potion but simply that we chose to do evil. So if you want to be righteous choose this day, this moment to do so and have the discipline to keep doing so.

Joshua 24:15

And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve hte Lord.