Date: 9-21-14
Text: James 2:8-11 8 If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right. 9 But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. 10 For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. 11 For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker. [NIV84]
The Big Idea: Your BFF became your BFF because you worked through the mess.
As you look around and ‘analyze’ your relationships, you may noticed that it was a rare relationship in which you didn’t have to work through a mess. Even with your BFF, there were messy times—times you didn’t think you’d stick it out….
Lifestyle worshipers, every relationship is an opportunity (a trial) to produce perseverance within us. And many, if not all, are very, very messy, aren’t they? This is why James exhorts us: “Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:4). And one major way perseverance (aka patience) will be able to ‘finish its work” in us, is if we stick it out…. This is how your BFF became your BFF: you worked through the mess; you hung in there; you stuck it out. And as the farmer works hard throughout the growing season, he sticks it out to receive a bountiful harvest at the right time….
Have you found this to be true in many of your relationships, especially those in which you worked through the mess? Your thoughts?
Scriptures to Renew Your Thoughts
— Hebrews 12:11 (NIV84)
— Matthew 5:9 (NIV)
— 1 James 3:18 (NIV84)
Lord Jesus Christ, I put You on as my Slippers of Patience: The Right Slipper of Forgiveness and the Left Slipper of Forbearance. Continue to make me an instrument of Your presence to bring healing and not harm, In Your Name Amen.
Pastor Mike