Study of James: Presumption & Wantingness
Sunday, March 08, 2020
Peace to Live By Study of James: Presumption & Wantingness - Daniel Litton
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Today we are finishing up James chapter 4. I think it’s been quite an interesting and insightful chapter, as really, the whole book of James has been beneficial for us in various ways. So, we’ll go ahead and finish up James chapter 4, and then move into the first part of chapter 5. I think today’s discussion, in both parts, is going to be interesting and helpful for us.
Go ahead and tap or turn in your Bibles to James chapter 4. We are starting in verse 13: “Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit"-yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that." As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. (James 4:13-17, ESV).
In coming to this text today, what is the overall, arching problem? The person who thinks that he or she’s life will go a certain way, and carry on in a specific linear direction, what are they doing? Well, they are presuming on the future. They are assuming that, as Doc Brown taught us in the Back to the Future trilogy, namely the third part, that the course of today will continue into tomorrow. The problem is that, we really don’t know what’s going to happen at any moment after this one, no matter what we really think. To quote Doc Brown again, “[Your] future hasn’t been written yet. No one’s has. Your future is whatever you make it, so make it a good one.” That’s kind of on track to what we’re talking about here. Dr. Brown’s point is that we have freedom, and therefore we have freedom to make choices that directly affect our future, hence, the Law of Liberty. And I would add to that, that in some kind of way we really do not understand, God has bound himself to our freedom.
That’s the whole problem with the folks in this passage—the one’s James is talking about. I mean, obviously, since James brings it up, people can and do act like this. They presume upon the future. That’s why James is adding his correction here. The point here is the heart attitude, of course, as it always is in the Bible. It’s not either that God cannot promise a person something in the future. God can and still does promise people things. I’ve talked about in the past how I believe God has promised me a wife. Can I go around and say, “Well, everyone, I can’t get killed because God has promised me a wife. I know for sure I’m going to live for the next several years.” No, of course, I can’t say that. That’s because the promise is contingent upon greater, grander things. It’s first dependent on the fact that Jesus doesn’t return before that would happen. The second thing, I think you could say, is that it is dependent on the fact I don’t go around boosting about it. That’d just be asking for trouble.
We know that arrogance is a feature of the Level Two person, the person in the Negative Existence. Arrogance is tied into self-righteousness. When we are arrogant, we are being disobedient to God, and we are hindering God’s power toward us in a positive direction. Arrogance not only blocks God’s power, but it also makes it so that people will naturally criticize and critique us. We become a hot target toward that kind of behavior. However, when we are humble, people like us more, and listen to what we have to say. Attacks against our character become non-existent.
I thought a lot last year in 2019 about how short life is, and how important the normal, everyday things of life are for us. I kind of took an inventory and actually tried to come up with a percentage (as regards my own everyday living) of how much time I spend doing normal, everyday activities versus participating in special events. So, what I did was I classified my career-based work in television, my teaching for the radio show, house chores, Bible studies, church-going, and everything else routine into the normal activities. Then, I classified vacations, going out to dinner, purchasing new things and opening them, parties, and the like as special activities. What I concluded was I spend about 93 to 95 percent of my life going through the motions, doing normal, everyday routines. Then I spend about 5 to 7 percent of my life doing special things. What does all this mean? I think it means that I probably should enjoy the normal, everyday life that I have, even when things aren’t exciting. If I only enjoy the exciting times, then life is going to be pretty drab and boring.
So, one day after service at my church my pastor was telling me how she was doing this errand and that errand throughout the week. I told her, “95 percent of life is doing the regular things, and I believe we are to do those things to the best of our ability.” Of course, she already seemed to understand that. But the point is that we are to be doing the right things, to be living that regular life being pleasing to God. If we are familiar with our Bibles, we should already know what God desires from us. This reminds we of what the Apostle Paul told the Ephesians, “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is” (Ephesians 5:15-17, ESV). When we live in sin, and don’t seek to be pleasing to God both with big choices and everyday items, if we never pray, if we don’t know the Scriptures, if we are inattentive in helping others, if it’s all about us—as it was for the people making the profit here in James—then we are missing the whole picture.
Another thing I would say is that it is important for us to consolidate and focus our lives. What I mean is that a lot of us spend time on things, whatever those things be, of which aren’t really fruitful for us. How fruitful are your relationships, your friendships? Are you are aligned with the right people? Does the church you attend really represent your internal beliefs, and are the people supportive and positive? Or, in certain areas do you find resistance? You find that you are just going through the motions but those motions really aren’t coming from your heart; they aren’t what you really want. I believe it is sin for us to spend our time focusing on things that don’t come from our hearts. It’s sin because it goes, first, against the natural order of the world that God has designed. Second, it’s sin because it’s not “making the best use of the time.” We are just living life doing things we think we’re supposed to do. Does the earth rotate around the sun because it’s supposed to? Does nature flow so abundantly because it is self-aware and realizes it better or else? We need to get into alignment with ourselves if we are really going to enjoy our lives and pursue happiness.
Now James is going to double-down. James chapter 5, verse 1: “Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days. Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you.” (James 5:1-6, ESV)
What leads a person to be full of love for the material versus love for God and others (notice I just contrasted the two) is that a person is full of self-righteousness. That might seem like a surprise connection to some. But, if we stop for a moment and think, we know this is what Jesus has taught us. So, the reason a person may love the material versus others can be that the person has a low sense of self-worth. But I thought you just said the person is self-righteous? How can self-righteousness and a low sense of self-worth go together? Well, the truth is, that a person who seeks to acquire more and more does so to boost his or her self-image. Isn’t that why a woman may spend so much time looking for a perfect outfit to wear to some event? Isn’t that why a man wants to own a collection of this or that to show off to his friends? Not always, but a lot of times this is the case. The low self-worth causes the person to keep obtaining the material, which in turn causes the person to become self-righteous based on what they now have.
The person who really is after God’s own heart in this area is the one who holds onto things loosely. This isn’t what is commonly believed in Protestant circles. The commonly held belief is that a person should own less and less, and therefore imitate Christ more and more. Again, though, that’s an external appearance that props up one’s own self-righteousness, just in the opposite direction. No, what God wants is an attitude that one has about his or her possessions in that he or she is not too strongly attached to them. What this means is that we can have all that we want (yes, you have that right), we can have all that want provided we hold onto it and view it within ourselves correctly. If we have something we value, we hold onto it with a loose grip in that if something happens to it, we are not devastated. It may bother us at the moment, but that feeling quickly passes. This is because “All that matters is God.” When we really believe that, our attachment to possessions becomes less and less. If we lose something, we’re okay with that. We’re not afraid of someone stealing our possession because we have relinquished any strong attachment to it.
I know for me, myself, personally, if I would of heard or read what I just said five years ago it would have not been too welcome in my heart. The concept behind what James is telling us here reveals in our minds our own personal level of wantingness, remember, a characteristic of the Level Two Christian. In the Giving Up Control method I have outlined, I have described how we come out of this kind of attachment to things (or even people). If we have a strong desire to obtain more, or to have this or that, whatever it is, we need to give that desire up. We can do this in light of, first and foremost, the realization of “All that matters is God.” Second, we can do this in view of the fact that when we give up our strong desire, this allows God’s power to flow freely in our lives. This means that if we have a desire that is good for us, good for someone else, good in general, God’s power will work to see that what we first desired will begin to come into our lives.
Now, I know, this may be kind be hard for many people to believe. It goes against the very nature of our minds. Our minds, just like James has described for us in the passage I just read, believes that we have to struggle, and maybe, just perhaps, rip other people off, do them harm, etc, to get what we want. Yep, this is what James has just said to us. Do people really admire those who act in these ways, even though they are rich? Well, obviously not. The person may have all the possessions in the world, the beautiful house, the nice cars, the prominent position in the world, the basketball and tennis courts, the bank accounts full of money unlimited. But what does this really get the person? The person is just like Old Man Potter in the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” (1946). He has everything, but he doesn’t have life. Who has the life? Well, George Bailey has the life because he has the things that truly matter—he has the family and friends that love him; people respect him. He doesn’t have all the money, but he doesn’t need it. Potter may have been satisfied, but George was truly happy.
This concept of God’s power flowing in our lives, of gaining what we desire, is not a foreign concept to God, or one that should be labeled as anti-Christian. This isn’t just a charismatic concept, though, undoubtedly charismatic Christian’s often understand it. It’s not a New Age idea that’s been ported over to fit into Christianity either. This is how God really works. This is the truth that is behind, remember, Jesus’ admonitions to ask and receive. Remember those? Jesus wasn’t just saying those things to give people false hope and make them feel good. The thing of it is, like I was just saying, is that to a person on the lower levels of consciousness, the Depression State and the Negative Existence, to those people, these kinds of concepts, God being on our side, God’s power flowing, God giving us exactly what we want, those kind of concepts are going to seem false to the person. This is because the person’s mental state is too negative and too much negative power is flowing in their lives for them to first, understand it, and second, to actually see it. I myself certainly would not tell you these things if I personally had not experienced God’s miraculous power within my life on a first-hand basis.
The goal is not for us to lay up treasure, as James talked about. That’s not what we are here on this earth for. Why, the earth itself, we should know by now, is in the process of becoming, just as we are. What we see around us is not going to be so in the near future. God’s going to create a new earth, and of course, a new outer-space. All in this current Universe is torn down and rebuilt anew. Again, it’s not that collecting possessions is wrong. I’d be a hypocrite if I said otherwise. I personally collect things. You collect things. Lots of people collect things. The point from James, the point from God, is how do we view those things. Is our life tied into them? Are they are life? What would happen if we sold them? Are we highly stressed out in that case? If so, then perhaps we are putting too much emphasis on this current world. But if, upon internal evaluation to the best of our ability, we pass the test, then we are free to collect. As long as we hold things in proper perspective, everything is fine.
I think a good ‘external’ and ‘obvious’ baseline test a person can take in regard to being overly attached to possessions is to consider whether or not you are in debt. I’m not talking about a home loan or a car loan. What I’m talking about is unnecessary debt. Indulgent debt. I mean, are your credit cards maxed out? Perhaps you have bought a home or a car that was too much for you to bite off and chew. The banks have gotten better about this, in trying to protect people (and themselves of course) from this happening. But, debt can tell a person if they are too strongly attached to things—to buying things. Even if the reasoning behind it wasn’t just to have nice things, but rather to impress other people, it is still a problem. It’s still something a person needs to deal with, especially for the Christian. I think Christians should be good role models when it comes to money. In other words, we shouldn’t be racking up unnecessary debt for things that are worldly. It’s not wrong to spend and buy if you have the money, but when you don’t, that’s a problem.
Besides, all these things purchased and revered, what do they amount to? What I mean is that often the great feeling we get when we buy something shiny and flashy is gone in a month or two. We believe in obtaining this item, whatever it is, that it will bring some fulfillment to our lives. We thought, “Once I get this thing then I will be truly happy, completely satisfied, and utterly content.” But what happens? Unfortunately, our flesh lied to us. It told us those things, but we have come to find death after the newness has worn off. Now, this isn’t the case for everybody. Again, it all comes back to one’s perspective, one’s heart attitude. Some people buy things, and after buying them, find they do actually add to their lives and they are indeed content. However, with a lot of things it seems to be the opposite. Disillusionment occurs with these flashy, new possessions because of the false idea we had about them to begin with. We all know, deep down, that there is only one person who fulfills, one things that makes us truly happy. That’s God, our relationship with God, Everything else loses it’s steam over time.
Another heart check we can perform is by considering how much we give to others, or, if we have something someone else needs, are we willing to give it to them? I know, this second part is a tall order. Let’s focus on the first part. If we consider our money, every which way it goes, how much do we find that we actually give to others? How much is given to charity? What about the church? Hopefully the church gets something. Your pastors deserve it. There used to be this thing called a tithe. People would give ten percept of their income to their church. Some people still do this. The point is that by evaluating our giving, we can determine where our hearts are at, particularly in how much we value our possessions. I will say that I believe that the more we give, the less we miss it. I’ve seen God provide in big ways for people who have wanted to give even when they didn’t feel like they had the money to do so. God is watching; he loves cheerful givers.
Most of us listening today probably don’t really pay laborers. Some might. But most of us don’t have people we pay to do work for us. It’s important if we are in a position of paying others for services done on our behalf that we pay them fairly and perhaps even better than most. This is because we want to be generous with our money, to act like we believe Jesus would act if he were paying another for a service rendered. If we rip people off, big or small, that’s not getting us anywhere. There are a lot of consequences to such an action. Think about it. We have no reward in Heaven in the future for being generous because we weren’t generous. We are perhaps hurting our reputation. People might start calling us a cheap skate or penny pincher. We are probably hurting the reputation of the Christian name. People might say, “Those Christians are poor tippers.” We are probably causing ourselves to have to face guilt inside our minds because we know we should have done better. We have to walk around for an hour trying to repress those thoughts of guilt that are swarming around inside our minds.
Finally, James said in closing about the rich, “You have condemned and murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you.” You see, when we become too into what we have, and what we want to obtain, when the desire becomes too strong, we will stop at nothing to get what we want. James says that the rich go after people. They go after people’s money and possessions who have less. Wantingness is out of control; covetousness is at its full manifestation. James notes the righteous person here perhaps as the one who has been faithful with their money. They’ve lived like God wants them to live. This person isn’t going after others; this person is content. This person has their desire for more relinquished. They aren’t on the second level of Inner-Self, the Negative Existence. They are higher than that. The rich person, though, that person is at that level, with the wantingness out of control. It is out of control to the point where murder might even happen. We see it on T.V. from time to time. We’ve seen it in the news. The person plummets to the bottom level of consciousness and does something heinous for money’s sake.
I will close with this. When I was a senior in high school, I was considering becoming an attorney for a living. I thought I would go to law school. That being the case, as part of my high school program I had the opportunity to mentor (shadow) a couple practicing lawyers for twelve weeks straight. I was all over the place with them doing that. Going to big trials, small trials. One was for rape, another for a speeding ticket. I got to see what the judges did before a trial would start and everyone got there. Got to see the cussing and the paper flinging. But I set in on a lot of behind the scenes meetings too. And I will tell you this. I never in my life saw people get more greedy and vicious about anything but when it came to money, and obtaining that money. Whether it was a divorce or a person trying to gain power of attorney over a failing parent to get early access to an inheritance, people could show a dark side I’d never seen before. I say this because it is important that we evaluate our internal drives and desire, and, at the same time, keep watch on ourselves, lest we become like one of the people James is talking about today, and we find ourselves to be full of greed and viciousness, full of wantingness, full of desire, and not having money and possessions in proper perspective, and finally finding ourselves displeasing to God.
- Daniel Litton
Today’s Acknowledgements:
Scientist Emmitt L. Brown from Back to the Future Part III (1990) and Psychologist David R. Hawkins
Today we are finishing up James chapter 4. I think it’s been quite an interesting and insightful chapter, as really, the whole book of James has been beneficial for us in various ways. So, we’ll go ahead and finish up James chapter 4, and then move into the first part of chapter 5. I think today’s discussion, in both parts, is going to be interesting and helpful for us.
Go ahead and tap or turn in your Bibles to James chapter 4. We are starting in verse 13: “Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit"-yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that." As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. (James 4:13-17, ESV).
In coming to this text today, what is the overall, arching problem? The person who thinks that he or she’s life will go a certain way, and carry on in a specific linear direction, what are they doing? Well, they are presuming on the future. They are assuming that, as Doc Brown taught us in the Back to the Future trilogy, namely the third part, that the course of today will continue into tomorrow. The problem is that, we really don’t know what’s going to happen at any moment after this one, no matter what we really think. To quote Doc Brown again, “[Your] future hasn’t been written yet. No one’s has. Your future is whatever you make it, so make it a good one.” That’s kind of on track to what we’re talking about here. Dr. Brown’s point is that we have freedom, and therefore we have freedom to make choices that directly affect our future, hence, the Law of Liberty. And I would add to that, that in some kind of way we really do not understand, God has bound himself to our freedom.
That’s the whole problem with the folks in this passage—the one’s James is talking about. I mean, obviously, since James brings it up, people can and do act like this. They presume upon the future. That’s why James is adding his correction here. The point here is the heart attitude, of course, as it always is in the Bible. It’s not either that God cannot promise a person something in the future. God can and still does promise people things. I’ve talked about in the past how I believe God has promised me a wife. Can I go around and say, “Well, everyone, I can’t get killed because God has promised me a wife. I know for sure I’m going to live for the next several years.” No, of course, I can’t say that. That’s because the promise is contingent upon greater, grander things. It’s first dependent on the fact that Jesus doesn’t return before that would happen. The second thing, I think you could say, is that it is dependent on the fact I don’t go around boosting about it. That’d just be asking for trouble.
We know that arrogance is a feature of the Level Two person, the person in the Negative Existence. Arrogance is tied into self-righteousness. When we are arrogant, we are being disobedient to God, and we are hindering God’s power toward us in a positive direction. Arrogance not only blocks God’s power, but it also makes it so that people will naturally criticize and critique us. We become a hot target toward that kind of behavior. However, when we are humble, people like us more, and listen to what we have to say. Attacks against our character become non-existent.
I thought a lot last year in 2019 about how short life is, and how important the normal, everyday things of life are for us. I kind of took an inventory and actually tried to come up with a percentage (as regards my own everyday living) of how much time I spend doing normal, everyday activities versus participating in special events. So, what I did was I classified my career-based work in television, my teaching for the radio show, house chores, Bible studies, church-going, and everything else routine into the normal activities. Then, I classified vacations, going out to dinner, purchasing new things and opening them, parties, and the like as special activities. What I concluded was I spend about 93 to 95 percent of my life going through the motions, doing normal, everyday routines. Then I spend about 5 to 7 percent of my life doing special things. What does all this mean? I think it means that I probably should enjoy the normal, everyday life that I have, even when things aren’t exciting. If I only enjoy the exciting times, then life is going to be pretty drab and boring.
So, one day after service at my church my pastor was telling me how she was doing this errand and that errand throughout the week. I told her, “95 percent of life is doing the regular things, and I believe we are to do those things to the best of our ability.” Of course, she already seemed to understand that. But the point is that we are to be doing the right things, to be living that regular life being pleasing to God. If we are familiar with our Bibles, we should already know what God desires from us. This reminds we of what the Apostle Paul told the Ephesians, “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is” (Ephesians 5:15-17, ESV). When we live in sin, and don’t seek to be pleasing to God both with big choices and everyday items, if we never pray, if we don’t know the Scriptures, if we are inattentive in helping others, if it’s all about us—as it was for the people making the profit here in James—then we are missing the whole picture.
Another thing I would say is that it is important for us to consolidate and focus our lives. What I mean is that a lot of us spend time on things, whatever those things be, of which aren’t really fruitful for us. How fruitful are your relationships, your friendships? Are you are aligned with the right people? Does the church you attend really represent your internal beliefs, and are the people supportive and positive? Or, in certain areas do you find resistance? You find that you are just going through the motions but those motions really aren’t coming from your heart; they aren’t what you really want. I believe it is sin for us to spend our time focusing on things that don’t come from our hearts. It’s sin because it goes, first, against the natural order of the world that God has designed. Second, it’s sin because it’s not “making the best use of the time.” We are just living life doing things we think we’re supposed to do. Does the earth rotate around the sun because it’s supposed to? Does nature flow so abundantly because it is self-aware and realizes it better or else? We need to get into alignment with ourselves if we are really going to enjoy our lives and pursue happiness.
Now James is going to double-down. James chapter 5, verse 1: “Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days. Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you.” (James 5:1-6, ESV)
What leads a person to be full of love for the material versus love for God and others (notice I just contrasted the two) is that a person is full of self-righteousness. That might seem like a surprise connection to some. But, if we stop for a moment and think, we know this is what Jesus has taught us. So, the reason a person may love the material versus others can be that the person has a low sense of self-worth. But I thought you just said the person is self-righteous? How can self-righteousness and a low sense of self-worth go together? Well, the truth is, that a person who seeks to acquire more and more does so to boost his or her self-image. Isn’t that why a woman may spend so much time looking for a perfect outfit to wear to some event? Isn’t that why a man wants to own a collection of this or that to show off to his friends? Not always, but a lot of times this is the case. The low self-worth causes the person to keep obtaining the material, which in turn causes the person to become self-righteous based on what they now have.
The person who really is after God’s own heart in this area is the one who holds onto things loosely. This isn’t what is commonly believed in Protestant circles. The commonly held belief is that a person should own less and less, and therefore imitate Christ more and more. Again, though, that’s an external appearance that props up one’s own self-righteousness, just in the opposite direction. No, what God wants is an attitude that one has about his or her possessions in that he or she is not too strongly attached to them. What this means is that we can have all that we want (yes, you have that right), we can have all that want provided we hold onto it and view it within ourselves correctly. If we have something we value, we hold onto it with a loose grip in that if something happens to it, we are not devastated. It may bother us at the moment, but that feeling quickly passes. This is because “All that matters is God.” When we really believe that, our attachment to possessions becomes less and less. If we lose something, we’re okay with that. We’re not afraid of someone stealing our possession because we have relinquished any strong attachment to it.
I know for me, myself, personally, if I would of heard or read what I just said five years ago it would have not been too welcome in my heart. The concept behind what James is telling us here reveals in our minds our own personal level of wantingness, remember, a characteristic of the Level Two Christian. In the Giving Up Control method I have outlined, I have described how we come out of this kind of attachment to things (or even people). If we have a strong desire to obtain more, or to have this or that, whatever it is, we need to give that desire up. We can do this in light of, first and foremost, the realization of “All that matters is God.” Second, we can do this in view of the fact that when we give up our strong desire, this allows God’s power to flow freely in our lives. This means that if we have a desire that is good for us, good for someone else, good in general, God’s power will work to see that what we first desired will begin to come into our lives.
Now, I know, this may be kind be hard for many people to believe. It goes against the very nature of our minds. Our minds, just like James has described for us in the passage I just read, believes that we have to struggle, and maybe, just perhaps, rip other people off, do them harm, etc, to get what we want. Yep, this is what James has just said to us. Do people really admire those who act in these ways, even though they are rich? Well, obviously not. The person may have all the possessions in the world, the beautiful house, the nice cars, the prominent position in the world, the basketball and tennis courts, the bank accounts full of money unlimited. But what does this really get the person? The person is just like Old Man Potter in the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” (1946). He has everything, but he doesn’t have life. Who has the life? Well, George Bailey has the life because he has the things that truly matter—he has the family and friends that love him; people respect him. He doesn’t have all the money, but he doesn’t need it. Potter may have been satisfied, but George was truly happy.
This concept of God’s power flowing in our lives, of gaining what we desire, is not a foreign concept to God, or one that should be labeled as anti-Christian. This isn’t just a charismatic concept, though, undoubtedly charismatic Christian’s often understand it. It’s not a New Age idea that’s been ported over to fit into Christianity either. This is how God really works. This is the truth that is behind, remember, Jesus’ admonitions to ask and receive. Remember those? Jesus wasn’t just saying those things to give people false hope and make them feel good. The thing of it is, like I was just saying, is that to a person on the lower levels of consciousness, the Depression State and the Negative Existence, to those people, these kinds of concepts, God being on our side, God’s power flowing, God giving us exactly what we want, those kind of concepts are going to seem false to the person. This is because the person’s mental state is too negative and too much negative power is flowing in their lives for them to first, understand it, and second, to actually see it. I myself certainly would not tell you these things if I personally had not experienced God’s miraculous power within my life on a first-hand basis.
The goal is not for us to lay up treasure, as James talked about. That’s not what we are here on this earth for. Why, the earth itself, we should know by now, is in the process of becoming, just as we are. What we see around us is not going to be so in the near future. God’s going to create a new earth, and of course, a new outer-space. All in this current Universe is torn down and rebuilt anew. Again, it’s not that collecting possessions is wrong. I’d be a hypocrite if I said otherwise. I personally collect things. You collect things. Lots of people collect things. The point from James, the point from God, is how do we view those things. Is our life tied into them? Are they are life? What would happen if we sold them? Are we highly stressed out in that case? If so, then perhaps we are putting too much emphasis on this current world. But if, upon internal evaluation to the best of our ability, we pass the test, then we are free to collect. As long as we hold things in proper perspective, everything is fine.
I think a good ‘external’ and ‘obvious’ baseline test a person can take in regard to being overly attached to possessions is to consider whether or not you are in debt. I’m not talking about a home loan or a car loan. What I’m talking about is unnecessary debt. Indulgent debt. I mean, are your credit cards maxed out? Perhaps you have bought a home or a car that was too much for you to bite off and chew. The banks have gotten better about this, in trying to protect people (and themselves of course) from this happening. But, debt can tell a person if they are too strongly attached to things—to buying things. Even if the reasoning behind it wasn’t just to have nice things, but rather to impress other people, it is still a problem. It’s still something a person needs to deal with, especially for the Christian. I think Christians should be good role models when it comes to money. In other words, we shouldn’t be racking up unnecessary debt for things that are worldly. It’s not wrong to spend and buy if you have the money, but when you don’t, that’s a problem.
Besides, all these things purchased and revered, what do they amount to? What I mean is that often the great feeling we get when we buy something shiny and flashy is gone in a month or two. We believe in obtaining this item, whatever it is, that it will bring some fulfillment to our lives. We thought, “Once I get this thing then I will be truly happy, completely satisfied, and utterly content.” But what happens? Unfortunately, our flesh lied to us. It told us those things, but we have come to find death after the newness has worn off. Now, this isn’t the case for everybody. Again, it all comes back to one’s perspective, one’s heart attitude. Some people buy things, and after buying them, find they do actually add to their lives and they are indeed content. However, with a lot of things it seems to be the opposite. Disillusionment occurs with these flashy, new possessions because of the false idea we had about them to begin with. We all know, deep down, that there is only one person who fulfills, one things that makes us truly happy. That’s God, our relationship with God, Everything else loses it’s steam over time.
Another heart check we can perform is by considering how much we give to others, or, if we have something someone else needs, are we willing to give it to them? I know, this second part is a tall order. Let’s focus on the first part. If we consider our money, every which way it goes, how much do we find that we actually give to others? How much is given to charity? What about the church? Hopefully the church gets something. Your pastors deserve it. There used to be this thing called a tithe. People would give ten percept of their income to their church. Some people still do this. The point is that by evaluating our giving, we can determine where our hearts are at, particularly in how much we value our possessions. I will say that I believe that the more we give, the less we miss it. I’ve seen God provide in big ways for people who have wanted to give even when they didn’t feel like they had the money to do so. God is watching; he loves cheerful givers.
Most of us listening today probably don’t really pay laborers. Some might. But most of us don’t have people we pay to do work for us. It’s important if we are in a position of paying others for services done on our behalf that we pay them fairly and perhaps even better than most. This is because we want to be generous with our money, to act like we believe Jesus would act if he were paying another for a service rendered. If we rip people off, big or small, that’s not getting us anywhere. There are a lot of consequences to such an action. Think about it. We have no reward in Heaven in the future for being generous because we weren’t generous. We are perhaps hurting our reputation. People might start calling us a cheap skate or penny pincher. We are probably hurting the reputation of the Christian name. People might say, “Those Christians are poor tippers.” We are probably causing ourselves to have to face guilt inside our minds because we know we should have done better. We have to walk around for an hour trying to repress those thoughts of guilt that are swarming around inside our minds.
Finally, James said in closing about the rich, “You have condemned and murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you.” You see, when we become too into what we have, and what we want to obtain, when the desire becomes too strong, we will stop at nothing to get what we want. James says that the rich go after people. They go after people’s money and possessions who have less. Wantingness is out of control; covetousness is at its full manifestation. James notes the righteous person here perhaps as the one who has been faithful with their money. They’ve lived like God wants them to live. This person isn’t going after others; this person is content. This person has their desire for more relinquished. They aren’t on the second level of Inner-Self, the Negative Existence. They are higher than that. The rich person, though, that person is at that level, with the wantingness out of control. It is out of control to the point where murder might even happen. We see it on T.V. from time to time. We’ve seen it in the news. The person plummets to the bottom level of consciousness and does something heinous for money’s sake.
I will close with this. When I was a senior in high school, I was considering becoming an attorney for a living. I thought I would go to law school. That being the case, as part of my high school program I had the opportunity to mentor (shadow) a couple practicing lawyers for twelve weeks straight. I was all over the place with them doing that. Going to big trials, small trials. One was for rape, another for a speeding ticket. I got to see what the judges did before a trial would start and everyone got there. Got to see the cussing and the paper flinging. But I set in on a lot of behind the scenes meetings too. And I will tell you this. I never in my life saw people get more greedy and vicious about anything but when it came to money, and obtaining that money. Whether it was a divorce or a person trying to gain power of attorney over a failing parent to get early access to an inheritance, people could show a dark side I’d never seen before. I say this because it is important that we evaluate our internal drives and desire, and, at the same time, keep watch on ourselves, lest we become like one of the people James is talking about today, and we find ourselves to be full of greed and viciousness, full of wantingness, full of desire, and not having money and possessions in proper perspective, and finally finding ourselves displeasing to God.
- Daniel Litton
Today’s Acknowledgements:
Scientist Emmitt L. Brown from Back to the Future Part III (1990) and Psychologist David R. Hawkins