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James 2: 8 If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, "Love your
neighbor as yourself,"you are doing right. 9 But if you show favoritism, you sin
and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. 10 For whoever keeps the whole law
and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. 11 For he
who said, "Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not murder." If you do not
commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker.
12 Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that
gives freedom, 13 because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has
not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment!
The Royal Law
To love our neighbors as ourselves. When we break this law, we break the heart of the law of God toward others. If we show favoritism to the powerful or wealthy, we are sinning against the very heart of God.
Study Guide note (page 57)
"Christ's law offers us the power to obey it, so it frees us from guaranteed condemnation ( Romans 8:1-13). When we stand before Christ's judgment seat, we cannot plead that we are unable to obey the royal law. By commiting ourselves to Christ we freely pledge to obey Him, so we cannot claim that His law is a harsh burden imposed on us. Our freedom as God's children and friends means more responsibility than when we were slaves to sin.
Law and grace are not contradictory. God gave Israel the Ten Commandments after He graciously liberated the people from slavery in Egypt. The laws were a gift to show how the redeemed should live. Likewise, after God frees us by grace from slavery to sin and death, He gives us commandments by which we may live our lives in true freedom. If we ignore these laws, eventually we will fall back into slavery to sin.
Illustration
In March 2007, Muskegon, Michigan residents Christine Bouwkamp and Kyle Kramer got married. The ceremony was traditional, but their reception was something else. Instead of hosting a formal reception, the couple took the money they would have spent on a reception for 150 wedding guests and bought 5,000 pounds of food. Then they put their 150 guests to work and had them unload the food from a truck to help feed 120 neighborhood families.
"We decided the first thing we wanted to do as husband and wife is to serve others," said Christine. "We thought about not just feeding our guests, but also the neighborhood."
Immediately after they exchanged their vows, Bouwkamp and Kramer put on aprons marked "Bride" and "Groom" and worked with their guests.
The couple met a year earlier while working on a committee for a ministry that conducts outreach to the neighborhood. Christine was a single mother of two daughters. Kyle had battled drug addiction and graduated from the Muskegon Rescue Mission's discipleship program.
"Both of their lives have radically changed," said Pastor Gary Sherwood. "People who haven't seen them for a while will recognize them by the way they look on the outside, but they won't recognize them on the inside."
When asked about the charitable act, the happy couple simply said they wanted to "bless God for blessing us with each other."
(reference: Devotional Email by Peter Kennedy)
Meditation and Application
Why is it personally important to you that "mercy triumphs over judgment" (verse 2:13)?
How can we begin this week to take the truth of James 2:1-13 to heart and put it into practice?
When we are demonstating love toward others, people see the glory of the Jesus Christ. Today in prayer, praise the Lord for His love towards you and love others.
1 comment:
Hi Deb! I love this blog site.
I'm reading this post about the Royal Law and to love our neighbors as ourselves.
Since I grew up poor and since most of my family was always poor, I don't really have as much of an issue with showing favor to the wealthy or powerful.
And since my parents were the typical boomers who told their kids that they weren't going to push religion on us, I'm also comfortable with being around non believers in a setting of sharing my faith or other blessings.
Now comes the hard part -- how to love my neighbor as myself when I have been wronged. This is really, really tough at work. People all over the workplace bare false witness constantly. Bosses often seem more concerned with protecting their turf than solving problems. People in the higher positions abuse their power and don't spend time mentoring people. "Favorites" get away with working about 8 days per month while everyone else is working long hours and taking work home.
The bottom line, I find that it is sometimes harder to love my neighbor when my neighbor is that rich or powerful person that most of the world shows favoritism to. I have an extremely high sensitivity to injustice and oppression that makes it really difficult to love "certain others".
That's my confession.
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