James: More GraceSample

How do you think about God?

James clearly thinks his readers are in danger of being deceived (v. 16). They need to wise up about their sin and about God too. The source of our sin is never God, so we can’t shift any blame to him. The consequence of leaving sin unchecked will be spiritual death. We must not let sin flourish and become ‘full-grown’ (1:15). We must persevere in killing it off.

Now James will remind his readers of what God’s gifts are really like. This will underline how wrong it is to think that God would ever ‘give’ someone a temptation!

• What do we learn here about God and his gifts (v. 17)?

God is so different from us. In our double-mindedness we can often be like ‘a wave … blown and tossed by the wind’ (1:6). Our responses can be so unreliable.

But God is always the same. He ‘does not change like shifting shadows’. He always gives good gifts and always has done. He gave the whole universe life, ‘fathering’ the ‘heavenly lights’. He has always been on the side of light, not of darkness and deception.

• What special good gift has God given to believers? How and why did he give it (v. 18)?

What a contrast to those ugly ‘births’ of sin and death, products of our own evil desires (1:15)! God has chosen to give believers a very different sort of birth.

God has brought us to life spiritually and he has done it ‘through the word of truth’. As we heard and responded to the gospel message about Jesus, our new lives began. God’s word is very powerful. God spoke and the universe was born. His word has brought us to spiritual birth too.

God has desires in his heart but, unlike ours, his desires and plans are always good. His gift of new birth is a gift with a purpose. He wants believers to be ‘a kind of firstfruits of all he created’. This is an image from Old Testament days. The firstfruits of any farm crop were set apart to belong to God in a special way.

That is God’s desire for us. Out of all that he has created, God wants us to be specially his own.

Picking the ‘firstfruits’ was also a sign that the harvest was beginning. Receiving the seed of God’s word is to be only the beginning too. God is looking for a great harvest of righteousness in us!

Pray

Thank God for all the good gifts he has given you, especially the gift of spiritual brith.