"man"

One question I have always wondered about the bible is "why does God always refer his commands and rules to man". I've been always wondering why God has chosen specifically males and not females even though he is willing to accept anyone because he made both man and woman in the beginning.

It was through the website http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2011/08/10-interesting-word-phrase-facts/ that allowed me to realize that the word "man" was refereed to as gender neutral and it wasn't until the late twentieth century that we began to use the word "man" for males. This shows me how our media and traditional ways have continued to be lost as we continue to grow in our generation and we begin to develop new ideas and ideals that cause us to forget the original origin or root of the word.

Wisdom

"who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life  by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbour bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do no boast about it or deny the truth. Such "wisdom" does not come from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, of the devil" James 3:13-15

In relation to what I learned Sunday, This passage is about two different kinds of wisdom. An earthly wisdom and a heavenly wisdom. Heavenly wisdom comes from humility and earthly wisdom is from false humility. Such as showing off or even lowering yourself to make people compliment you. 

As humans, these are natural urges we all want from others and it is difficult to mix both or get confused by what your true intentions are. However, to overcome these, we need to be able to understand our strengths and weaknesses, accept our faults, and be content with who we are as God's masterpiece. If we cannot do this, we become envious or jealous which means as said by Pastor Kelly, "discontent on what God has given you". This means you are telling God that everything that he has given you is not enough and you need more. However, we should be greatly blessed for everything God has given us and we should find ways to continually thank him and not judge or yell at him for giving us these things. 

TCBS1

"for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" Romans 3:23

As our first bible study for TC13, we were given a long passage with other passages in relation to the entire verse. Thus, we were given an assignment of reflecting on each verse. 

This verse is simply explaining that we are hopeless without God and Jesus Christ. We are all sinners and should be condemned but it is through God's costly sacrifice that allows us to continue to have a relationship with God. We need to understand how much we need Jesus Christ and God because that is the core to the faith of Christianity. As said, we are reaching out and trying to grow new churches in developing countries because the suffering there is a lot more extreme than we can ever imagine. Thus, the people and civilians in those countries need a sense of hope and that is where Jesus comes in and helps give them this hope. These people fully understand the power of God because they see the amazing grace but we, the spoiled generation in the developed country, are blind to this knowledge because we are filled with so much media and materialistic items that Satan has given us to tempt and distract us from our real goal of filling God's purpose in our life. 

The Horrific Beauty of the Tongue

"no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be." James 3:8-10

This verse is explaining the faults of man and more specifically the tongue. God explains to us that it is impossible for something to do two opposite things at once such as praising and cursing with the same tongue. Even though this is what;s happening today, it should not be as it is said in the bible. However, we need to understand that "no man can tame the tongue" as in we are hopeless in trying to make everything better. This also shows how we need to be more reliant on God because it is only through him that we are able to see him and have a relationship with him even though we are undeserving of his love and grace. 

The verse that stuck out to me in this was "we curse men, who have been mad in God's likeness". This was surprising to me because it reminded me that all of us as humans, are made to look like God or shaped to God's perfection. Thus, we should not find the faults and judge, insult, and complain about others because they are God's creation and we should be thankful and see the beauty and masterpiece that he has created in everyone. 

God's love

"This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers" 1 John 3:16

I decided to reflect upon this verse because in a week's time, my band will be leading worship for a sermon based on this verse.

Simple enough, this verse is obviously about Love. The thing that popped into my mind is the question many people ponder in our society today which is "what is love". Does it not clearly state the answer in this verse?

Yes, when you think of Jesus Christ laying down his life, you think of his death and resurrection. However, I do not believe God is asking all of us to die for our brothers. The bible specifically uses the words "laid down" instead of the word "gave". When you lay down or put something down, you usually put the item down so you can do something else first. Meaning, that Jesus gave us priority over his own life because he loves us. This verse is asking us to put our brothers (others) over our own life. Meaning, we should be willing to go out of our way to show compassion and love to others no matter who and why. We should always approach them with love

"We love because he first loved us" 1 John 4:19. I think I am finally beginning to understand the reason or the significance behind this verse. I have noticed that many people now a days have become more selfish which results in less compassion for one another. However, they still love their friends and family because they love them back. We learn things because we see others do it. Thus, the only reason we are able to love is because he showed us how to love first. Ultimately proving that he is the one and only God that is all loving and loves us more than anyone else can imagine.

Faith through Actions

"You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did." James: 2:22

In this part of the book of James, it talks about faith and deeds. How faith is accompanied with deeds because it is your actions that complete your faith. If you don't do anything about your faith, then it's dead.

This small verse really hit me on how Christians should be living in our modern day world. We need to be able to do what we say we are. Thus, if we say we are Christian, we must do actions that show the life of Christ. We are his ambassadors and we need to represent him well as you would for a team if you were wearing their uniform. 

Overall, you need to make sure you do what you say and to not become a hypocrite because nobody listens to hypocrites. However, if you do fall into this trap, you need to be able to accept your faults, understand your sins and be willing to confess to our God because he is loving and will always forgive you no matter what.