Brandon Webb

Listening and doing.

2011-07-22T17:47:00.000-07:00

James 1:21- 25 says, “21 Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. 22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. 23 Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror 24and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. 25 But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.”

Before we go to work, leave for an interview, or head out on a date we usually do one thing immediately before leaving: we check ourselves in the mirror. And we’re not just looking in the mirror, we are looking for imperfections in our appearances. Afterall, no one wants to go out on a second date if your shirt is on backward, your face has a booger hanging off it, and your teeth have this morning’s bacon in between them. So, just to make sure we look our best, we put time and effort into looking at ourselves in the mirror.

Now, just like we put time and effort into looking at ourselves in the mirror, do we put that same time and effort into looking at ourselves in the Bible? I mean, do we, as Christians, not just read the Bible, but also look at ourselves compared to the Scriptures. Just like when the Bible says, “21 Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.” Do we just read over this, or are we going to stop and look at our own moral filth and evil and do something about it?

I encourage you, as you are reading through the Bible with this book, to not just read the Bible, but to let the Bible change you. I encourage you to look at yourself compared to the Bible because, “whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.” So, If you get nothing else out of this book, I ask that you remember this verse, and not just remember it, but apply it to your life.

In Last Place?

2011-07-10T19:06:00.000-07:00

James 1:9-11

9 “Believers in humble circumstances ought to take pride in their high position. 10 But the rich should take pride in their humiliation—since they will pass away like a wild flower. 11 For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant; its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way, the rich will fade away even while they go about their business.”

You know, sometimes it seems that we are in last place. We are in last place in our finances because we don't have the the nice house and new car. Sometimes we feel like we are in last place at our work because we don't have the high promotion with the higher pay that comes with it, and many times we feel like we are in last place because we don't have the “cool” job with the praise and high status that comes with it.

But God says through James, it’s okay, we don't need to be in a high-status place in this world. In fact, God said through James, “Believers in humble circumstances ought to take pride in their high position.” Even when world tells us that we are at the losest position obtainable on Earth, we are still to take pride in wherever we are at.

So why? Why should we take pride in our lowly status? Because, guess what, one day we are going to leave this Earth, and we are not going to be able to take anything with us. Not our cars, houses, or positions for which we worked all of our lives. No, it will all be left here on Earth for someone else to have.

“Trials and Temptations”

2011-07-03T22:10:00.001-07:00

James 1:1-8
“1 James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,
To the twelve tribes scattered among the nations:
Greetings.

Trials and Temptations
2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters,[a] whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. 6 But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. 8 Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.”

Let’s face it. Life gets hard, things happen, and unexpected disasters occur. But what are we to do when the hardest times in life occur? Are we to worry, or should we panic, or maybe we should rejoice?

You see, so many times when bad things happen in our lives, one of the first things we do is worry and panic; but we never think to rejoice. We never think that God really knows what’s going on, and maybe this never occurred to us, but everything that happens to us; God has already allowed it to trickle through his fingers into our lives. You see, there’s nothing that happens in our lives that God did not already approve.

And why might he have done this, why might God approve for these things to happen in our lives? Simply, to make us “mature and complete, not lacking anything.” You have heard it said, “There was never a wise young man, but only a wise old man.” The wise old man has lived through plenty of hard times in his life, and because of this, he knows exactly how to handle and teach on these very same events in the lives of younger people, in hopes that he can help and teach others for their own futures.

God also makes it very clear that if we are not sure how to handle these hard times that we are going through, we should ask God for advice. God wants to help us; God wants to give us advice. But when we ask for this advice, we must believe that we are going to receive it. We must not worry that we will not receive the answers to our questions. Because when we doubt, we doubt God, and then we should not expect to receive anything.

Why worry?

2011-06-28T19:27:00.001-07:00

Isn’t life just full of trials? I mean, come on; the car breaks down, work’s cutting hours and laying off people, the price of gas is skyrocketing, bills need paid, and luck, well, it’s just running out. We’re sitting here thinking to ourselves, how am I going to do this, how am I going to make it through, and what am I going to do? You know, how am I going to get back up from where I am?

Yeah, I guess what was just stated above is simply called life, but it’s harder some days than others, isn’t it? I mean some days, we worry about so much, from how much the car is going to cost, to where I’m going to find work, and do we have the money to cut the check for the bills this month? Some days it just gets to be too much.

I know that I’m still young, but in some ways I’ve been there. I’ve been out of a car for days and weeks at a time, work has cut my hours, and the few bills that I have, have been hard to pay at times, but God knows what’s going on; He isn’t stupid. He knows exactly what we need, and He is here helping us through this crazy thing called life even now. Matthew 6:34 tells us, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

I want you to think of the past problems in your life, from the unpaid bills to the broken down car, and look at how God has brought you through them. For real - take a minute and think about it. Now I want you to think about the crises you may be facing right now and remember the same God that helped you get through the past problems is never changing and is going to do the same in the very problem you may be going through right now.

Now as you are thinking about all of that, I want to ask you a couple of questions. What did worrying do for you? Did it only made you sick, sleepless, and unproductive? And all the while, as you were worrying, God was taking care of everything, and you had nothing to worry about anyway. Now I have another question for you: if you weren’t worrying during those times how much better could that have made your situation?

What if this whole God thing is not for you?

2011-06-26T18:31:00.000-07:00

Maybe you’re sitting here right now thinking to yourself, “this whole God thing is just not for me.” It’s just not wort it, it’s too much, and it’s not my kind of thing. Maybe you just aren't built for the Christian lifestyle?

There was a time that I didn’t want to be a Christian. I started to deny everything about God and I started to give up on Him. I had no faith in God, after all, what did He ever do for me, Right? So why should I do something for Him? I started to get frustrated just with the thought of God being real. This was because I didn’t feel Him like others have claimed to. God didn’t help me like others have claimed to be helped. He didn’t bring me peace like others have claimed to receive. So, I decided to stop, to stop following God. I said, “The heck with it, I want to live my own life, and I’m sick of following rules!” Furthermore if there was a God, if He was real; He would have helped me get rid of my problems, He would have helped me get a job, and He would have put peace in my life. Just as others have claimed they had. All these statements from people claiming that God had done something for them or that He had given them something. I didn’t see God doing these things for me. I just figured that they had good luck and I had horrible luck.

After a while of living an awful life, I remembered a few months prior; when I was following God, when I was going on the mission trips, when I was happy, and when I did have peace. These are the moments when God seemed so real, when God seemed to show Himself, when God seemed to be using me, when God had seemed to have given me peace in the hardest of times. So I had decided to give God another shot, because I was so desperate for peace. I cracked open my Bible and started reading. Page after page I couldn’t stop; it was like an addiction because of the peace that I felt and gained from reading the Bible. It seems really strange what a book can do, because after reading, I realized that God is still there. God is still real. God is still giving peace.

All this said, I have been there and back. With experiences I have found that life is easier when you are following God. Not because life will just hand you everything, because I still have problems in life, one being that I still don’t have a job. Yet, in all of this I do have peace to make it through and that is a lot more than it sounds.

If this is you, if you are questioning God and whether He exists or not, I challenge you to try reading the Bible because that’s what I did. It brought me so much peace. Specifically, I encourage you to read the books of Psalm and Matthew found in the Bible. Feel free to ask questions, but I assure you that you will have better luck finding your answers while reading.

Author: Brandon Webb
Editor: Jerade Bucher