James 5: Are You Righteous?
Verse of the Day: (V16) “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”
1. Riches (V1-6)
V1 “Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.”
There is nothing wrong to be rich and wealthy, but when we cheat or deceive others to get riches, then it is absolutely wrong in God’s eyes. Indeed, only by grace and through faith in God, and not riches and wealth, can we have true happiness and salvation in God.
V4 “Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.”
2. Righteous (V7-16)
V7 “Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.”
What God truly desires from His people is not so much of our riches and wealth, but the fruit of His Spirit such as patience, faith and righteousness. We may be very rich, wealthy and famous, but without God and the fruit of His Spirit, we are never truly joyful, contented and satisfied with our lives. In fact, God only answers our prayers, and show us great and mighty things that we don’t even expect, when we have the fruit of His Spirit.
V15 “And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.”
3. Rain (V17-20)
V17 “Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months.”
One of the great examples of a man of the fruit of the Spirit of patience, faith and righteousness was none other than Elias. When Elias prayed, God answered him, and there was no rain on earth for three and the half years! Elias was just like you and me, sinners saved by grace, yet when he had righteousness in God, God answered him!
V18 “And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.”
Prayer of the Day:
Dearest God, please help me to be righteous in You so that my prayers are answered.
