Sunday, January 30th: James 1:16-18...

Here is an acrostic for TRIALS:

True
Revelation
In
A
Low
Situation

We started class with a reminder that James is writing to people who are struggling. These struggles have been on-going and some are wrestling with what it means to be believing people in the midst of difficulties...With this thought in mind we explored the following question:

What does it mean to be a 'believing' person in the midst of difficulties?

Here are some of the things we explored:

A believing person:

1. Trusts God is present during their difficulty
2. Knows God is loving no matter what difficulty we are walking through
3. Knows God is active during their difficulty even when this fact is not blatantly obvious
4. Must seek God's Wisdom during difficulty not man's wisdom

We then jumped right into Verse 16 and learned these following things about believing people in difficulty through James:

• Don't be deceived. It is easy to be deceived when in difficulty. We need people in our lives we can trust to help us stay focused on Jesus.

Vv 17 & 18:  What determines a good and perfect gift?

Verse 17 states good and perfect gifts are the ones from above...FROM GOD!! Who determines a gifts worth? Don't look for alternatives to receive good and perfect gifts. God is the only source of good and perfect gifts. 

Upon reading these verses, I was reminded of a saying, "There is NO SHADOW in the TRUE LIGHT OF JESUS!!!"

Sometimes when in a difficulty people may wonder why God even made them. We see the answer to this in our verses. 

1. God created us because he wanted to...He was under no obligation to create us. 
2. Not only did God create us because He wanted to but we according to verse 18 from two different translations are "A kind of first fruits of His Creatures" and "A Chosen Possession"

In the Old Testament, the first fruit was the best that was given to God. These verse is saying that WE (man & woman) are the best of His (God's) creatures. AMEN!!!

***I leave us with this thought...The fact of the matter is not only did God create us because He wanted to but we are the first fruits (chosen possession) BEST of HIS CREATURES***

This Sunday we are going to finish Chapter 1 of James. We are going to do our best to do vv 19-27.