Proper 23 B - James 2:10 - The Law and the Gospel - Oswald Chambers

"For whosoever shall keep the whole law,
and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all."
James 2:10

" The moral law does not consider us as weak human beings at all, it takes no account of our heredity and infirmities, it demands that we be absolutely moral. The moral law never alters, either for the noblest or for the weakest, it is eternally and abidingly the same. The moral law ordained by God does not make itself weak to the weak, it does not palliate our shortcomings, it remains absolute for all time and eternity. If we do not realize this, it is because we are less than alive; immediately we are alive, life becomes a tragedy. "I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died." When we realize this, then the Spirit of God convicts us of sin. Until a man gets there and sees that there is no hope, the Cross of Jesus Christ is a farce to him. Conviction of sin always brings a fearful binding sense of the law, it makes a man hopeless - "sold under sin." I, a guilty sinner, can never get right with God, it is impossible. There is only one way in which I can get right with God, and that is by the Death of Jesus Christ. I must get rid of the lurking idea that I can ever be right with God because of my obedience - which of us could ever obey God to absolute perfection!

We only realize the power of the moral law when it comes with an "if." God never coerces us. In one mood we wish He would make us do the thing, and in another mood we wish he would leave us alone. Whenever God's will is in the ascendant, all compulsion is gone. When we choose deliberately to obey Him, then He will tax the remotest star and the last grain of sand to assist us with all His almighty power. "

~Oswald Chambers in My Utmost for His Highest

Proper 23 B - James 2:1-7 - Lessons from the Poor

" Having grown up poor, I resented the deference paid to the rich. It did not matter whether their opinions had any merit. Their wealth made their opinions more valued than the opinions of others... I found it paticularily upsetting when this deference occurred in the church.

My father, an independent electrical contractor in Mexico, made a modest living and actively participated in our local Methodist church. When the congregation undertook the rebuilding of the sanctuary, he offered several suggestions based on vast experience. But the building committee chose to listen to the suggestions of prominent church members who were wealthy but who had no experience with construction.

I remember how upset I was, and Dad had a conversation with me. He asked that I not forget the experience and hoped that some day I would be in a better financial situation than he. He also cautioned me to remember how it felt to be ignored and set aside because of social status.

These verses from James bring back memories of my father's talk with me about how we choose to imitate prominent people rather than learning from God, how the Mexican revolution produced not new leaders but different oppressors. The poor, once in power, imitated the oppressors... "

The Upper Room Disciplines 2003; Upper Room Books; Nashville TN; www.upperroom.org.

Proper 23 B - Mark 8:35 - Eternal Possessions - Thomas A Kempis

Mark 8:35
"If you try to keep you rlife for yourself, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will find true life."

" But woe to them who do not know the true state of their own souls, and more woe to them who prize this unhappy, flawed life as the highest good. Some people cling so tightly to life that, although they can scarcely get the bare necessitites by working or begging, they would still be willing to live here forever, caring nothing for the kingdom of God ... And, indeed, in the end these unfortunate people will know to their sorrow how cheap and worthless were those things that were so important to them. On the other hand, God's saints and all the devout friends of Christ took no account of material possessions nor of what marked success in this life, but their whole hope and intent focused on eternal possessions. All that they wished for was lifted up toward the permanent and invisible, lest love of visible things should drag them down to the lowest depths. "