April 2 Daily Devotional

Scripture for Day 92—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:

When you're tempted to envy the wicked rich, meditate on Psalm 73. God inspired Asaph to record his spiritual crisis for our benefit. First he affirmed the great theological truth:

¹Truly God is good to Israel,
to those who are pure in heart.

But he admitted that he had problems applying it.

² But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled,
my steps had nearly slipped.

His problems began with his envying the wicked rich.

³ For I was envious of the arrogant
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
⁴ For they have no pangs until death;
their bodies are fat and sleek.
⁵ They are not in trouble as others are;
they are not stricken like the rest of mankind.
⁶ Therefore pride is their necklace;
violence covers them as a garment.
⁷ Their eyes swell out through fatness;
their hearts overflow with follies.
⁸ They scoff and speak with malice;
loftily they threaten oppression.
⁹ They set their mouths against the heavens,
and their tongue struts through the earth.
¹⁰ Therefore his people turn back to them,
and find no fault in them.
¹¹ And they say, "How can God know?
Is there knowledge in the Most High?"
¹² Behold, these are the wicked;
always at ease, they increase in riches.

His envy of the wicked occasioned his backsliding into self-pity.

¹³ All in vain have I kept my heart clean
and washed my hands in innocence.
¹⁴ For all the day long I have been stricken
and rebuked every morning.

It was only his concern not to stumble God's redeemed people that kept him from saying aloud what he was wrestling with.

¹⁵ If I had said, "I will speak thus,"
I would have betrayed the generation of your children.

Still he sunk deeper and deeper into his crisis.

¹⁶ But when I thought how to understand this,
it seemed to me a wearisome task…

But then there was a turning point.

¹⁷ …until I went into the sanctuary of God;
then I discerned their end.

This was the turning point for Asaph—he went into the sanctuary of God. He experienced the truth of James 4:8—"Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you." From that point, he began to view things in light of eternity.

¹⁸ Truly you set them in slippery places;
you make them fall to ruin.
¹⁹ How they are destroyed in a moment,
swept away utterly by terrors!
²⁰ Like a dream when one awakes,
O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms.
²¹ When my soul was embittered,
when I was pricked in heart,
²² I was brutish and ignorant;
I was like a beast toward you.

And so he had moved from envy ("they, they, they") to self-pity ("me, me, me"). But now God graciously restored his heart and he moved to worship ("you, you, you").

²³ Nevertheless, I am continually with you;
you hold my right hand.
²⁴ You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will receive me to glory.
²⁵ Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
²⁶ My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
²⁷ For behold, those who are far from you shall perish;
you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.
²⁸ But for me it is good to be near God;
I have made the Lord God my refuge,
that I may tell of all your works.

Amen and amen!

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