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February 4 Daily Devotional

Are You For Real? (James 2:8–13)

the Rev. Larry Wilson

Scripture for Day 35—James 2:8–13

8 If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," you are doing well. 9 But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. 10 For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for 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 murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. 12 So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. 13 For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

Devotional:

To draw close to believers who can help you and to evade those who need your help might be natural. But it's not godly. If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself"—if you genuinely love your neighbor as yourself, even though he or she is "poor" in some way—then "you are doing well."

God commands, "love your neighbor as yourself." To whom do you have this duty? "Your neighbor." Your neighbor is any fellow human whom God, in his providence, brings to you—whether rich or poor; whether your color or not; whether likable or not. A religious lawyer, trying to squirm out from under the force of this command, asked Jesus, "Who is my neighbor?" In response, Jesus told the story of "the good Samaritan" (Luke 10:25–37).

What is your duty? "Love your neighbor." Well, you say, I'd never hurt him. Good. You don't hate him. But God commands more—love him. Perhaps his ungodliness rightly offends you. That doesn't change the fact that God calls you to godliness—to God-likeness. And God so loved the world—the wicked realm of sinful rebels who lie in the power of the evil one—that he gave and sacrificed his only begotten Son in order to save them.

How should you love your neighbor? "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." "Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them" (Matt. 7:12). Do you actively welcome those who visit your church? Do you show Christ-like concern for them?

If you really do this, then you are doing well. "But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors." If you do so discriminate, then God's law convicts you and finds you guilty as a transgressor. And when it comes to sinning against God, there's no such thing as a "little sin." Why is that? Because "whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it." And why is that? Because "he who said, 'Do not commit adultery,' also said, 'Do not murder.' If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law." Every sin is against God, and that's what makes it so sinful.

Again this underscores how important it is to follow Jesus Christ, the merciful Savior. The law convicts us as transgressors. Our predilection for showing partiality shows that we deserve God's wrath and curse, both in this life and in that which is to come. But Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners. Ask the Lord to forgive you for failing to love your neighbors in a Christ-like way. Ask him to fill you with his Spirit to enable you to do so.


Click here for background on the author of Are You For Real?: Meditations in the Epistle of James for Secret or Family Worship.

 

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