Month: February 2022

1 Peter 1:4 To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you.

The major promise of the Bible beginning with Abraham and ending in Revelation is the promise of Land, the Promised Land, the Kingdom of God, Eternal Life, Heaven, an Inheritance incorruptible. This ”land,” this inheritance, is reserved in heaven for you. The story begins in a Paradise garden and ends in a Paradise city. In between, the promise works out in a land, a people, a nation, a kingdom, a Person, a Church, and a heaven reserved.

An inheritance is something substantial that belongs to us now already but it is not yet ours in visible reality, and the kingdom (inheritance) is guaranteed. The indwelling Holy Spirit is the guarantee of our inheritance. By faith in Jesus Christ the kingdom is within us, and we await the full revelation. ”The best is yet to come,” but meanwhile, we have the hope and the promise in our hearts. This promise fills our days with joy and peace in believing.

1 Peter 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

By His great mercy our Lord has caused us to be born again into a new life, which includes the sure and certain hope of life forever with God. This hope of life is guaranteed to us by Jesus’ resurrection.

Living hope is something real, solid, and true even though it is not seen now or not yet. We see Life and we have hope as a guarantee by faith. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for.” This living hope is more real than the physical life we see because it lasts forever. When we die this life inside goes on to live world without end. And then, we know the body will rise again.

That New Life into which we are born again is real life that never ends. And it is that very sure hope that keeps us going in difficult times.

James 5:15, 16 And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. Confess your sins to one another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

God promises that prayer will save the sick. In the context of calling for the elders to anoint and pray for the sick man the promise of saving and healing is given. The prayer for healing is connected to confession and absolution, as when Jesus forgave the lame man when he healed him. Being stuck in a sin may obstruct the healing.

The promise is that believing prayer will save the sick. The word ”save” means make whole in body and soul. Jesus does this; prayer is the faith that receives it. Prayer applies Salvation to one another.

”A righteous man” is one who believes in Jesus. His prayers are effective and fervent because they are prayed by faith in Jesus’ name. The fervency comes from the indwelling Spirit, who grants the faith, not from the flesh or the emotions.

In the wider context, prayer avails much. ”More good is wrought through prayer than this world can know about.” The answers to believing prayer may not always come when and how we want, but we can be sure of this: Prayer Avails Much! Until we ”get there” we cannot know much prayer actually availed. God gave us this promise to encourage us to pray.

James 4:7, 8 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners, and purify your hearts, ye double minded.

This is a wonderful conditional promise that we can take advantage of more than we probably do. This dual promise involves the two main characters in the spiritual world. We have been given the ability by God to influence the presence or absence of God and Satan in our lives.

God promises that when we resist the devil he will flee from us. The promise is based on this word: ”Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.” Satan is always going to try to lie, frighten, and tempt us sin, doubt, misbelief and despair, but he has no real power to make it happen unless we go along with him. Simply resist! Plead the blood of Jesus, pray in His name, and exercise authority over the evil one. He must flee, and his absence is welcome.

At the same time that we are resisting we may exercise the positive side of the coin: draw near to God and He will draw near to you. The Lord will come and fill your heart with His Presence. The one to whom you submit will have the greater influence on your life, happiness, and wellbeing.

The key on our part is recognizing the thoughts inspired by the devil. Then we resist. But we may preemptively prevent the devil and welcome the Lord any time and all the time. He tells us how: cleanse your hands (repent) and purify your hearts (believe the gospel). That means daily repentance and reception of forgiveness and cleansing by faith. Keep God close and Satan far.

James 4:6, 10 But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble….Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.

This conditional promise of more grace from God depends on humility on our part: if you are humble God will give you grace and lift you up. God indeed gives grace to every person because of Christ, for grace by definition is universally granted to all sinners. However, the proud are so full of themselves they have no room for God and no need for grace. Grace is available, but they cannot receive it.

Therefore, the Holy Spirit must use the hammer of the Law to convict of sin, break down pride, and bring about repentance and humility. Then the sinner is ready to believe the Gospel and receive the grace of God in Christ. Repentance and humility is itself a gift of God worked in us through the Word. Once we are humbled He comes with grace to lift us up. It all works when He exalts us, never when we exalt ourselves.

We need to remain humble every day by repentance and faith and remembering our baptism (drowning, dying, and rising). Pride is so insidious that it raises its ugly head so often in ways that we don’t even notice. How essential it is that we do not let too many days go by without applying Law and Gospel to the heart. Let humility do its work for the Lord has more grace to give.

James 2:5 Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them love him?

God has promised the poor that they will be heirs of the kingdom of God. James quoting Jesus: ”Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God [Luke 6:20].” Note: they are not blessed with the kingdom because they are poor. Jesus is announcing Good News to the ”poor of this world rich in faith.” You may not see it now and it won’t be visible yet, but the kingdom is within you now and you will enter its glory later.

Things are not what they seem to our physical senses. The real truth is revealed to the spiritual eyes of faith: those who have God and the Kingdom are truly the rich ones. This is the Great Reversal. ”That ye through his poverty might become rich.” There are times when we need to realize how rich we are. We are heirs of the kingdom: everything that belongs to God is ours. He even shares with us His very life.

He promised the Kingdom to ”them that love him,” which means believe Him. ”We love him because he first loved us.” To love God is to believe Him. To believe Him is to love Him, for He is love. We love each other in perfect unity. And as heirs, we receive everything He owns.

James 1:25 But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.

James had just wtitten about hearers of the Law and not doers of it: they look at their face in a mirror and then walk away and forget what they looked like. The Law is like a mirror that reflects the self and shows our Sin. If we do not respond in repentance we are not a doer, but a forgetter.

Here in this verse God gives a promise of blessedness for the person who does the Law by responding in repentance and faith with a sincere desire to change his way. The “perfect law of liberty” is the whole counsel of God, both Law and Gospel. It shows how Jesus died for your sins, kept the Law for you, and freely grants forgiveness and righteousness. And all who repent and believe the Gospel are doers of the work. These respond with the deed of repentance and faith. In John 6:28, they asked Jesus, “What must we do?” Jesus answered, ”This is the work of God, that you believe [in Me],”

This Gospel (the perfect law of liberty) is the power of God to save and to effectively change our lives for the better. This is the promised blessing.

James 1:21 Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.

God promises us that when you receive the Word of God into you heart it will save your soul. The soul (the self: the mind, will, and emotions) will be saved from sin, death, and the devil when we repent and believe the Gospel. The Holy Spirit moves us to desire to repent of sin and forsake filthiness and naughtiness, and He plants faith in the soul through the Gospel when it is read or heard. We receive the engrafted word with meekness, humility, and simple trust in Christ.

What happens when we hear the Law is that we are willing to give up Sin and Self, Pride and Unbelief, Filthiness and Naughtiness; and when we hear the Gospel we are willing to replace it all with the life of God, who is for us Righteousness and Goodness, Forgiveness and Grace, Love and Good works. Not a bad deal!

This event (repentance and faith) needs to happen in us, in the soul, every day. It is the daily spiritual bread that builds us up and keeps us alive. Let the Word be grafted in to the soul by whatever means. It is able to save you from death and disaster.

James 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

Anything good that we enjoy in this life is a gift from God. Good things come from Above, from heaven, from the spiritual realm on the other side of the veil that separates the visible from the invisible. In a broken, sinful, fallen, and evil world everything in it breaks, fails, disappoints, and dies. That is life on earth without God. ”All is vanity, and a striving after wind.”

However, God has invaded our world in the person and work of the Son. He has earned the blessing and gift of the Spirit, whom He has poured out on all flesh. The Spirit delivers the gifts of God ”from above.” And He continues to visit us with His good and perfect gifts.

These good gifts include invisible, spiritual blessings like forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and salvation, and countless other promises. And in addition, He gives the faith, hope, and love that enables us to enjoy the material gifts of God’s good Creation, and all the gifts included in ”daily bread.” Health, family, friends, food, drink, and creature comforts, for example, are all to be enjoyed with thanksgiving. In faith in a good God, we may ”eat, drink, and be merry,” in the good and proper sense of going about daily life with thanks, faith, and the joy of the Lord.

James 1:12 Blessed is the man that endureth temptation, for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to those that love him.

This is one of many “Blessed” promises in the Bible. A person is blessed when he endures temptation. He is tried and tested, but he does not give in and give up. He is blessed on the one hand because he has proven faithful to God and kept his trust in the Lord. He is blessed on the other hand because enduring the temptation makes him even stronger.

Tests come our way every day, strong or weak, hard or easy. They may not be as dramatic as Abraham’s testing, Job’s trials, or Jesus’ temptations, but they still make us stronger or weaker, draw us closer to God or we push Him away. Blessed is the man who passes the tests.

The specific blessing and promise for enduring temptation is the crown of life. The crown of life is the same as eternal life, but with the added implication that one is able to rule that life. For sometimes this life ”under the sun” without God beats us down tries to rule us. But Christ turns the tables and gives us the crown.

Revelation 2:10: ”For ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and i will give you the crown of life.” You shall forever rule over Death and Sin and all Evil.