e175 What is Your Truth on the Ground? (Part 1, Spiritual Maturity, James)

This is Faith to Witness 99, motivating us to hear God and share the Shepherd.  

Season 3 Episode 175 What is Your Truth on the Ground? (Part 1, James)

Here’s the gist, human. So James had been sharing the Gospel for 10+ years and Peter for 30+ years at the time they wrote their letters.

What strikes me about these letters is the maturity of James and Peter. They both offer wisdom that comes from one place: living in the middle of hard-fought truth on the ground. How to be obedient, the mind battles that fight us, the attributes of God to lay hold of, and the urgency of every moment, tempered with an assurance about how one should act to walk with Jesus.

Because they both fought hard to establish and sustain the early church on the way, truth and life of Jesus Christ.

They would know. 

We should listen. 

E175. 

When we think about the apostles of Jesus, it is easy to return to their time with him on earth. Three short but intense years as they walked with him, began to realize who he was, and witness first-hand his popularity and his perfection, then his death, burial and resurrection.

As young, new believers. Baby Christians. With a powerful final earthly image of him ascending into the heavens to be at the right hand of his Heavenly Father. 

So it wasn’t until 44-49 AD that James wrote the book of James. While he was not an original disciple of Jesus, and commonly described as an early skeptic, he became an active leader of the first church we learn about in Acts. 

Peter, one of the original 12 disciples, oh Peter, is thought to have written his books between 60-68 AD. Not quite 20 years after James’ work. 

So James had been sharing the Gospel for 10+ years and Peter for 30+ years at the time they wrote their letters.

What strikes me about these letters is the self-evident maturity of James and Peter. They both offer wisdom that comes from living in the middle of truth on the ground. How to be obedient, the mind battles that fight us, the attributes of God to lay hold of, and the urgency of every moment, tempered with an assurance about how one should act to walk with Jesus.

Because they both did.     

We should listen. For instance, in James chapter 2, James tells us what faith looks like in daily life. How our obedience impacts our faith.

James 2:22 You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did.

And Peter illuminates the power of naming what you know in his second letter. 

2 Peter 1:12-14

So I will always remind you of these things, even though you know them and are firmly established in the truth you now have. 13 I think it is right to refresh your memory as long as I live in the tent of this body,14 because I know that I will soon put it aside, as our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me.

I land here: applauding the resolve that comes when persuasion settles in to the daily lives of two apostles who have submitted their free will to and heard the truth from Jesus first-hand. It was made clear. And their souls have spiritually aged through their experiences.

I want to take a closer look at these apostles at this point in their spiritual maturity and what their perspective came to be, what wisdom looks like when it is truth on the ground. Year after year of evangelizing Jews and Gentiles. 

Truth on the Ground

Today, a closer look at the book of James to name the behavior that shapes how mature we are in Christ. While James addresses behaviors like taming the tongue, boasting, and favoritism I am asking you to take a cue on considering the behaviors we cover here, and weigh your behavior to gauge your own spiritual maturity. I encourage you to take time to read his whole letter at some point this week.

Let’s get started. James, chapter one.

Consider how you behave in trials:

James 1:2-9

2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, 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.

9 Believers in humble circumstances ought to take pride in their high position. 

Consider what you say when tempted:

James 1:13-18

13 When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; 14 but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. 15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

16 Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. 17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. 18 He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.

Consider what is planted in you and how it makes you behave:

19 My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, 20 because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. 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 24 and, 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.

Consider who pollutes your relationship with God:

27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

Consider the triumphant power of being merciful:

In James, chapter 2

12 Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, 13 because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

Consider your relationship between your faith and your deeds.

14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? 15 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

18 But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”

Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. 19 You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.

Consider what it takes to be called God’s friend:

22 You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. 23 And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend. 24 You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.

Wisdom that Defines How We Mature in Christ

In James, chapter 3, James poses this question: 

13 Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. 

And James defines your maturity like this:

17 But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. 18 Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.

Chapter 4

Consider how you react to dissension, human desires and motivation:

4 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

Consider how your spiritual maturity impacts your prayer.

16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

Where Our Spiritual Maturity Will Take Us

And finally in chapter five, James addresses where your spiritual maturity will take you. 

Consider this faith to witness road. 

James 5:20 

 20 remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins.

It’s clear to me from this simple scripture-based exercise that my faith is defined by my spiritual maturity in action, my truth on the ground. God’s Word illuminates my faith by what I do. So I ask myself, “how much clearer does God need to be?”

How about you, human?