Enthralled
As a bit of an inside joke among the staff, I am often labeled ‘enthralled’ by the nature (animals, plants, and weather) that paint such a vibrant picture on the campus of HLAC. For fun (I know its an illness), I looked up the definition and word origin of enthralled. It literally means to be “in slaved” by someone or something. It carries the idea of being ‘spell bound’ but it is deeper. ‘Captured and held’ is probably closer to the real meaning. Given yesterday’s message, I am personally asking God to be more enthralled by, for and with Jesus. That for me was the biggest take-away. And here’s why: if I am enthralled by Jesus, then sin will look less appealing, my needs, desires and wants will fall to the background and friendship with the world will seem less and less an option.
Quite regularly, this blog post features some quotes from various sources, mostly commentaries, on the text from the message. It seems best to me to give more space to such quotes this week. This is in part because the commentators did such good work and also because, in the message I did not include any of their quotes. I hope these ‘sound bites’ (roughly ordered as the topics emerge through the text) serve you well as you continue to think on what James 4:1-12 calls us to as followers of Jesus.
“It is deplorable that the Christian church has so often been characterized by such bitter controversies. The seventeenth century Jewish philosopher Spinoza observed: ‘I have often wondered that persons who make boast of professing the Christian religion- namely love, joy, peace, temperance, and charity to all men- should quarrel with such rancorous animosity, and display daily towards one another such bitter hatred, that this rather than the virtues they profess, is the readiest criteria of their faith.’ Some battles are, to be sure, worth fighting; but even then they must be fought without sacrificing Christian principles and virtues.” – Douglas Moo
“Unity scarcely requires unanimity on all topics, merely the agreement not to let disagreements destroy deeper bonds. But the bigger problem, sadly, in many Christian contexts is the lack of sufficient unity and commitment to one another in the first place.” - Bloomberg, Kamell
“God’s goal is not to give human beings what their own impulses demand; his goal is that human beings will learn to love what he loves. It is not that God does not want people to have pleasure, but that he wants to train them to take pleasure in what he knows is truly good. As with Christ, crucifixion comes before resurrection for God’s people.” -Peter H. Davids
“Instead of wanting the things of the world, we should remember, even while living in this world, that God gives the gifts that are truly worth having.” -Bloomberg, Kamell
“Submitting to God proves diametrically opposite to the world’s call to self-assertion, autonomy, and power.” -Bloomberg, Kamell
“The more we seek to live according to God’s wisdom, the closer we will grow to his purity and holiness.” -Bloomberg, Kamell
“Many people in our day, both outside the church and within it, are marked by a superficial joy and brittle laughter. They live the hedonist philosophy, ‘eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die’, that ignores the terrifying reality of God’s judgment. But even the committed Christian can slip into a casual attitude towards sin, perhaps presuming too much on God’s forgiving and merciful nature. It is all such people that James issues his plea for a radical, thoroughgoing repentance. Only such repentance can produce true Christian joy- the joy that overflows from consciousness of sins forgiven.” -Douglas Moo
“God will not leave a humble heart mourning. He will accept the repentance and respond with his love, raising the person up from their mourning into the warmth of his love.” -Peter H. Davids
“However high and orthodox our view of God’s law might be, a failure actually to do it says to the world that we do not in fact put much store in it. Again we see coming to the surface James’ understanding of Christianity as something whose reality is to be tested by the measure of obedience.” - Douglas Moo