March 30 Daily Devotional

Scripture for Day 89—James 5:1–6

¹ Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. ² Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. ³ Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days. ⁴ Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. ⁵ You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. ⁶ You have condemned; you have murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you.

Devotional:

The key to this warning is found in verse 3b—"You have laid up treasure in the last days." This applies several New Testament principles to our present setting. First, you are living in the last days right now. Second, the end of the last days will be the last day, the day when our Lord Jesus returns in power and glory to judge the living and the dead. Therefore, in the meantime, God calls you to reorient all your priorities in light of the fact that now is the last days and that their end is coming.

The text that seems to be on James' mind is Matthew 6:19–21—"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

Evidently there are two possible ways to live in the last days. You can either live with a view to accumulating the things that you value here on this earth. Or you can live with a view to accumulating the things that you value in heaven. Our Lord Jesus says that the mark of a genuine Christian is that you will set your eyes on heaven! You will gauge all your behavior by the effect it will have on heaven, on your everlasting joy with God.

In other words, the pilgrim attitude that John Bunyan commended in The Pilgrim’s Progress is not above and beyond the call of duty; it is the call of duty! Reorient all your priorities in light of the fact that—as 1 John 2:17 puts it—"the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever."

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