"Yeah, But!" - Too

 "For neither did his brethren believe in him." (John 7:5 KJV)

  "He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to becomes the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." (John 1:11-13 KJV)

 To coincide with what I was speaking about, here is how Matthew Henry sums up one of his nine points at the brother's advice being a little off: "First, Many carnal people go to public ordinances, to worship at the feast, only to show themselves, and all their care is to make a good appearance, to present themselves handsomely to the world. Secondly, Many that seem to seek Christ's honour do really therein seek their own, and make it serve a turn for themselves."  

 Without getting too far into the extraordinary aspect of spiritual life, I just want to cover a couple areas that I feel are easy to establish but are sometimes hard to hold unto. First and foremost, Salvation is all about the eternal life we have in Christ Jesus; nothing within this temporary existence is able to compare with what is waiting for us when we get to be with Jesus! 

 Does that mean we have no concern over the things of this world? No! We must always be concerned with what is going on around us, in our families, our jobs, even in the politics that govern our lives; even though this life is temporal, while we are in it, it is our responsibility to do our part in it, whatever that part is we have been given.

 That said, even though we have concern for the world, we care less about it than we do for Christ and God's will; even though sometimes, if not most of the time, we really don't know what God might be doing! Which is precisely why we know and understand that all things work together for good, because the things we don't know or understand, we believe God has already planned them out for good! 

 Secondly, Whatever happens, whether good or bad, has no effect on our eternal condition! We must not let anything steal the hope we have in the promise of Salvation! As a matter of fact, as James was saying, those things which should have otherwise hinder our hope, strengthens our hope, because we count it all joy to suffer for Christ! 

 Just in case you might have missed the pun, James might not have been present at the cross when Jesus died, but that does not mean he didn't later experience the pain! What helped him be able to count it all joy when troubles came, were the troubles he felt he deserved, which made it easy to cherish the opportunity to suffer anything for Christ.

 Yes, I know; easy to talk about, but hard to live out! As my mom would sometimes say: Where the rubber meets the road, that's where you find the moment of truth...

"We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves. We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We are knocked down, but we are not destroyed. Through suffering, our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies." (2 Corinthians 4:7-10 NLT)