Coming up this week…

We have just concluded our resilience series. Here is the challenge from our last week. This is from Daniel 11 and 12.

  • Resilience in PRAYER (How/what do you pray?)
  • Resilience in PRESENCE (How/who do you encourage?)
  • Resilience in PRACTICE (How do you live?)

The last part of Daniel 12 is also a reminder of how to live well and how to leave this world well. This is what the angel told Daniel after these visions, and I hope this is what God says about us when we exit this world.

13  “As for you, go your way till the end. You will rest, and then at the end of the days you will rise to receive your allotted inheritance.”

Daniel 12:13

We now move into the New Testament, where we will stay for a while. Possibly all of 2026.

As a start, we are in James. The series is called “Dead Faith”. We may have a faith, and we may believe all the right things and say all the right things, but our goals and perspectives may be mismatched with God’s word and God’s way. We would view the world through a worldly lens, not a scriptural lens. How do we captivate this faith? James is short, practical and very convicting. We will spend four weeks here. Each week will have a different chapter. I would like us to pause this month and ask ourselves the question: What is the state of my faith? Is my faith alive or dead?

Using the imagery of the functions of our human body, and specifically the primary senses, there are many things Dead Faith cannot do:

  • Dead faith can’t SEE – because sometimes our faith is only visible in our trials
  • Dead faith can’t TOUCH – sometimes our faith is only believable in our actions.
  • Dead faith can’t SPEAK – sometimes our faith is only transferable in our words.
  • Dead faith can’t TASTE – sometimes our faith is only desirable in our humility.

For those who are unaware, James is the brother of Jesus. I believe that is the biggest argument we have for the deity of Christ. Think about this: what would your brother have to do to convince you he is the son of God? James believed that his brother Jesus was the son of God, and he lived his life focused on him. He was the first “Bishop”, that is, overall leader of the church that we know. He is often called James the Just because he was very honest in his dealings and assessments with people, and he is said to have had rubber knees because he spent so much time in prayer. He then writes instructions to his “congregation” that are so simple and practical that most of it is either too difficult to comprehend its application or too simple, and we think it does not work.