Be Still and Know

James 5:19–20 Churches are not made up of perfect people. Far from it! This surprises some, who assume that Christians live lives of near perfection. For such people there is great consternation when the organist goes off with the youth leader, o...

James 5:16 Some years ago I contracted whooping cough. To be honest I thought that it was something only children got so was amazed when my GP told me that I had caught it. From time to time over a number of weeks I struggled to breathe. The wors...

James 5:16 How are you? I wonder how you normally respond to that question. Probably, like most of us, you smile sweetly and summarise your life with the one word “Fine”. It’s a good word and if it’s true that’s wonderful. But, if we’re honest, i...

James 5:14–15 Jesus was both a healer and a teacher. He ministered to the whole range of people’s needs – body, mind and spirit. When Jesus left this earth he commissioned the Church to carry on with that ministry. Here in James we see what that...

James 5:13 I remember as a teenager hearing a well-known preacher telling the story of a young woman who had told him that she often didn’t feel like praying. His response was that prayer is not a glandular condition! Prayer is something that we...

James 5:12 James isn’t talking here about bad language but about the very common practice at the time of trying to strengthen a statement by taking an oath. Jews made a distinction between oaths made in the name of God, which could never be broke...

James 5:11 We don’t know exactly what James’ readers were facing, but clearly it was tough for them to live as Christians. They needed to persevere. Amid all the temptations, distractions and persecution, they needed to hang in there for God....

James 5:9 The Bible introduces us to lots of grumbling people. Most famously, the people of Israel, who whinged after
God had miraculously led them out of slavery in Egypt. They had been there for 400 years and, at last, were set free by the migh...

James 5:7–8 Waiting sounds easy – until you have to do it! Waiting can be incredibly difficult and demanding, especially if you don’t know how long you are going to have to wait for. Waiting for medical test results, for a member of the family...

James 5:1–2 You can almost see the steam coming out of James’ ears can’t you?! He was furious at the way in which rich people were abusing their position. His very specific gripe with them was that they had failed to pay their workmen for mowing...

James 4:13–14 We are constantly encouraged to plan for the future. Whether we are looking at our family, our housing, our holidays or our pensions we are under continual pressure to make good plans. I don’t think that James was telling his reader...

James 4:7–8 Life can often feel like a battleground. There is great evil in the world – any newspaper will illustrate that in agonising detail. But there is also immense kindness and goodness all around, if we have the eyes to see it. Daily life...

James 4:6–7 Did you know that God is capable of hatred? Perhaps you think that God is so nice that he couldn’t bring himself to hate anything. The fact is that the Bible is quite clear that God seethes with hatred at times. In Proverbs 6:16–19 we...

James 4:2–3 If you could have anything in the world, what would you choose? A beautiful large home? A yacht? A luxurious holiday; perfect health; world peace? Verse two seem to suggest that we just need to ask God and we will get whatever we want...

James 3:17–18 Many churches these days observe that they have very few people in their 20s and 30s. Whenever I’ve asked people in that age group what they are looking for one theme dominates – authenticity. They are looking for Christians and chu...