#lordofglory

#DailyDevotion Do You Slander The Name Of Jesus? James 2:1–10 My fellow Christians, believing as you do in Jesus Christ, our Lord of glory, don't favor one person over another. 2If a man wearing gold rings and fine clothes comes into your meeting and a poor man in dirty clothes also comes in, 3and you give special attention to the one wearing fine clothes and say, “Please take this seat,” but you say to the poor man, “Stand there," or "Sit here by my footstool," 4haven't you contradicted yourselves and become men who are wrong in their judgment? 5Listen, my dear fellow Christians, didn't God choose those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and inherit the kingdom He promised those who love Him? 6But you have insulted the poor man. Don't the rich oppress you and drag you into court? 7Don't they slander the beautiful name by which you were called the Lord's own? 8If you really do everything the royal law demands, as it is written: "Love your neighbor as yourself," you're doing right. 9But if you favor one over another, you're sinning, and the Law convicts you of sin.10If you keep the whole Law but fail in one point, you're guilty of breaking all of it. Two big things here James starts off with. The first is my Christians. The name here is an appeal to who we are, little Christ. This then leads into what James calls Jesus Christ, i.e. our Lord of Glory. Calling Jesus our Lord of Glory points us to who Jesus is. If he is the LORD of Glory, he is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Now through faith in this Jesus, we have become little Christ. We are called to bear his image and likeness. This is the work that faith does us. Now if we are called by faith to be little Christ, then we are not called to show favoritism. The LORD of Glory shows no partiality. For whom did the LORD of Glory die? Did Jesus die just for the rich man? Did Jesus die just for the powerful? Did not Jesus the LORD take on human flesh and take the cross of death for all people? Yet James sees Christians favoring rich people over poor and dirty people. He sees them granting special status to them over and above the poor people. Then he makes a interesting statement, “didn't God choose those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and inherit the kingdom He promised those who love Him?” Wait, doesn't that show partiality? Well I think James here is going from a spiritual condition (he chose the poor of the world) and then making it into demonstrable sign, poor people. That is to say, those who are poor in spirit love the LORD our God. Treating poor people well as opposed to despising them shows you understand this spiritual principle. James then demonstrates it's these very same rich people (not all rich people) who sue their fellow Christians (suing fellow Christians slanders Jesus' name as they bear his name). James then pulls out the royal law, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Every law that is a law is fulfilled in this command. Paul affirms this. To do that shows you are doing right. To show favoritism is not to love your neighbor as yourself because you certainly don't want someone to skip over you because they showed favoritism to someone else. To show partiality is to sin: the Law convicts you of sin. If you break one Law you have broken the whole law because the Law is one. There is One whom you sin against every time you sin, our One God. God is not piecemeal and neither is the Law of God. Thanks be to God he gave us Jesus whose blood takes away our guilt. Heavenly Father, as we are called to bear the name of Jesus, grant us your Holy Spirit so we glorify that name instead of sin against it. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Read the full article