James 1:19 ESV Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; As the Turkish proverbs goes, if speaking is silver, listening is golden. Speaking is easy; listening is hard. James calls us to be quick to listen and slow to speak. We have two ears and one mouth. This suggests that we should listen about twice as much as we speak! We have a good record of Jesus's words, but he is the ultimate listener too, to respond appropriately to his hearers. James isn't just telling us to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, or even to seek to emulate Christ. He reminds us that we're brethren. We're adopted into God's family through faith in Jesus. Anger isn't necessarily wrong. In our anger we're not to sin. We're not to be quick tempered. 'Abba God, we praise you for adopting us into your family. Please help us to display the family characteristics: to be good, temperate listeners. For the glory of your name, a...
but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8 (ESV) Cynics question how God loves us. They point out all the wars, famines, plagues and so on in the world and question how God can exist. It could well be questioned how atheists make sense of suffering, because without our Creator, life is meaningless, and therefore who cares about suffering? Thankfully, God demonstrates His love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. It's not like we can earn God's salvation. It's only by His grace that we can be saved. The implication of this verse is that if we trust in Christ, we no longer become defined by our sinfulness. Instead, the perfect righteousness of Christ is credited to our bankrupt spiritual accounts. We can be blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ. The reformers used to describe us as simultaneously sinful and yet justified. Yet a day will come when we will be like Christ, for we will se...
My God will reject them because they have not listened to him; they shall be wanderers among the nations. Hosea 9:17 ESV https://bible.com/bible/59/hos.9.17.ESV Hosea's condemnation of Israel isn't cause for anti-Semitism, but sombre self reflection. If God rejected people who assumed they were His, then we should beware if we're professing Christians. Even if we aren't Christians, but think God is on our side, we should examine ourselves. Do we listen to God? We might not get to hear Him audibly, but we can listen to His word the Bible. Are we listening? If we ignore God, even if we're paying Him lip service, it doesn't bode well for us. God doesn't reject us like an overly jealous lover. Instead, if we reject Him, He will reject us. Even to this day, there's a Jewish diaspora throughout the world. Biblically, this is because they have by and large rejected God and their Messiah Jesus. In His mercy, God has returned many to their homeland, but s...
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