Author: David Griffith

I don’t know about you, but I have faced many trials in my 64 years on this planet! I have faced, am facing, and will face many more before the Lord takes me home to be with Him. I can tell you that I have faced those trials as a child of God, saved by grace and grace alone, and the Lord Jesus Christ, by the power of His Spirit, has brought me through them. Praise God! But the anxiety and worry that plagued me during those trials were excruciating. Can I get a witness?

I have also faced different trials from a different posture/perspective of God and as the Lord Jesus Christ’s servant. The trials themselves were really no different when I look back on them. The difference was my expectation as to what the outcome should be. As a child of God, I expected my Heavenly Father to just “take care of it” – take it away and restore my comfort. It took a while because He had work to do in my heart. But as a bond-servant of Jesus Christ, I expected to suffer, knowing that the suffering would be good for my soul. In verse 3, James calls this testing of my faith GOOD because it produces endurance. I can attest, and you probably can too, that when the test was complete, I was closer to Jesus than I was before the trial began. It may have taken just as long, but the trial did not feel as oppressive.

What does it mean to “have joy in the midst of a trial”? (My paraphrase). Is joy the same as happiness? Is joy always humanly pleasant? Not at all, but joy is fruitful. Joy is a sign that the Holy Spirit is working within me to make me more like Jesus!

Galatians 5:22, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, JOY, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”

Living as a slave to Christ begets the qualities that Jesus exemplified on earth and exemplifies now in our hearts. Galatians 5:25 sums it up perfectly, “If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.”

Living by the Spirit is a given if we have been saved because the Holy Spirit lives inside of us. But walking by the Spirit is a different matter entirely. In order to walk by the Spirit, we have to take the posture of a doulos, a willing servant of our Lord Who allowed our trials for His glory and our good! What is your posture before Him when trials come?

Tomorrow we will look at the result of endurance!

He loves you so much, forever!

No one is quite sure who actually wrote the book of James. Well, we know it was JAMES, but which James? Most scholars believe that it was the half-brother of Jesus who penned the letter because he was the most Jewish of the church leadership in Jerusalem, and it was written to all of the Jewish believers scattered throughout the known world. Jesus’ half-brother did not believe that He was the Messiah during Jesus’ earthly life. James grew up with Jesus and probably did not like Him very much because Jesus never got in trouble. He was “the perfect child,” and no one likes the parent’s pet, do they? No, James did not come to a saving knowledge of Jesus as Savior and Lord until after Jesus arose from the grave. James had always been known as the brother of Jesus, but at the forefront of this very important letter, James introduces himself in a totally different way, and this introduction is important for me and for you in our own lives. WHO ARE WE, REALLY?

Are we “saved,” meaning one who trusts in Jesus for our eternal security? Someone who the Holy Spirit has made alive in Christ? Are we simply born again and have newness of life? All good things; all amazing ways to describe ourselves if we have actually been saved by the blood of Jesus! But is just being saved God’s plan for us?

James was/is the half-brother of the Savior of the world, yet he does not say that when he introduces himself to believing Jews all over the known world. No, James does not name-drop, as he certainly could have. After all, it was true! Instead, James introduces himself as: JAMES, A BOND-SERVANT OF GOD, AND OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST,…

James introduces himself as a SLAVE! The word in the Greek is: doulos, which is translated: bond-servant, slave. It denotes one whose debt has been paid in full and is now in willful subjection to the one who paid the debt. James is introducing himself as an indentured servant, and he is happy about it.

So here is the question for me and the question for you: ARE YOU SIMPLY SAVED…OR ARE YOU SLAVED?

Our answers are important to how we read and interpret the next seven verses, the Bible as a whole, and ultimately how we live out our calling. The answer to this question determines how we face life’s trials!

So hang tight over the next four days as we discuss the trials of life and what to do about them from the perspective of whether we consider ourselves saved or we consider ourselves slaves of Christ, our Lord and Savior!

He loves you so much, forever!

What happens when the WHAT of loving my neighbor replaces the WHY of loving them?

That’s right: idol worship!

So this commandment, born out of the last six of the original Ten Commandments found in Exodus 20, makes me ask two questions:

What is love?

The LOVE spoken of here is the same love with which the Lord loves us: Agape Love. It is unconditional in nature and does not ask for anything in return. When we love ANYONE in this way, we are glorifying the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit because that is how God loves us.

Who is my neighbor?

A neighbor is anyone God puts in my path to love with God’s love.

In Luke 10:30-37, Jesus gives us the answer in the story of the Good Samaritan. Reader’s Digest version: a Jewish businessman gets mugged and left for dead beside the road. Two different religious men, who were also Jewish, saw the man and passed by, unwilling to help him for religious reasons. But a Samaritan man, on a journey to who knows where, saw him, felt compassion, and helped him.

The Good Samaritan helped his neighbor because:

a. He felt compassion (God’s heart).
b. He stopped because that was who he was, who he BE in his soul.
c. He had a plan to help the injured man, which means he used his MIND to think through what needed to be accomplished.
d. He used what God had given him to help, so he used his God-given STRENGTH to help the man.

The Samaritan had a bent toward recognizing a neighbor in need and then acting upon that bent. He did not allow the act of service, the WHAT, to overtake the WHY of service.

So you may be asking, “How can a relationship become an idol?”

Relationships become idols when they become more important than God Himself. They become idols when we offer our love or friendship while expecting something in return. They become idols when we believe people can fulfill a longing, need, or provision that only God Himself can fulfill and has promised to fulfill. (Read the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7.)

People become idols when we place burdens on them that they are incapable of carrying. When we do that, we end up crushing them under the weight of our expectations.

God calls us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. We are called to love our neighbor with the unconditional Agape Love of Christ. And guess what? We are called to love ourselves with that same love.

I am going to finish this week with a reminder of how the Holy Spirit describes love through the pen of Paul the Apostle in his letter to the Corinthians:

1 Corinthians 13:4-8a: “Love is patient, love is kind, and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own,  is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails…

Do you love this way? Or are you an idol worshipper?

As I have studied for this week’s Digging Deeper, I have been cut to the quick as my own sin has been revealed through God’s gentle Word. I write not as a man who has all of this figured out, but as a man who echoes Paul in Romans 7 when he says, “Wretched man that I am! Who will free me from this body of death?” (v. 24).

I struggle with idol worship.

So I ask the Lord each morning to guard my heart, soul, mind, and abilities so that they may be used for His glory and His glory alone.

Then I ask this simple question: “Who will it be today, Lord? Who is my neighbor today?”

Perhaps today, it is you.

I love you so much forever!

This idol may be the most hideous and damaging of the five idol categories because it is so easy to hide inside of, if not behind.

Strength becomes an idol when we begin to rely on our own strength and power instead of God’s strength and power.

The businessman or businesswoman who climbs the corporate or entrepreneurial ladder quickly and begins to believe in, and bask in, the acknowledgement of peers. The pastor who believes that the sudden growth of their church is due to their preaching, teaching, and administrative skills. The parents who believe they are the reason for their children’s success, discipline, athletic prowess, or grades.

The list is literally endless. Just have success, take credit for it, and now it has become an idol.

For years, I took great pride in how I handled my late wife’s perpetual illness, accepting the heartfelt accolades of people for myself instead of redirecting them to God. And then I fell badly.

Then, because she was limited in what she could do as a mother, I jumped in to become “Super Dad” and took credit for that too whenever people acknowledged it, until I found out that my kids resented me in so many ways.

Strike two.

Slowly, I have learned, as my good friend Terry Cash says, “There is nothing good in me; it is all of Christ!”

Here is a very, VERY limited list of verses to explore that reiterate Terry’s encouragement: 1 Chronicles 16:28; Nehemiah 8:10; Psalm 28:7; Psalm 29:1 (and this truth is found throughout the Psalms); Isaiah 40:31; Jeremiah 16:19; and Ephesians 6:10.

Look up these passages and be reminded that any strength we possess is from the Lord and nothing else. We cannot even take our next breath without His strength holding our atmosphere together.

So the next time you begin to feel giddy about some accomplishment, take a step back and give God the glory He rightly deserves. Take yourself off the perch and put God back where He belongs.

Ask the Lord this morning to show you where you have taken credit for literally anything, and repent before Him. Be consumed by His forgiveness and comfort. Then be on the lookout for the enemy the next time he tells you how awesome you are.

Pride is Satan’s sin; it does not need to become ours!

Tomorrow we look at the Idol of Relationships (neighbors)!

So where does the sin of idol worship begin?

That is correct: it begins in the mind! What we think about, who we think about, and how we think all matter.

And how do we combat sinful or evil thoughts? Right again, by renewing our minds with God’s Word!

Romans 12:1-3 is, to me, one of the most complete battle plans for facing the Idols of the Mind. It says:

“I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the RENEWING OF YOUR MIND, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. For through the grace given to me I say to every man among you not to THINK more highly of himself than he ought to THINK, but to THINK so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.”

A complete study of Psalm 119 will also shore up our mental defenses, as all but four of its 176 verses speak of God’s Law, God’s precepts, or God’s Word. But verse 11 is particularly helpful as it reminds us, “Thy Word I have treasured in my heart, that I may not sin against Thee.”

How did the enemy attack Eve in the garden? By putting doubt in her mind concerning the goodness and reliability of God.

And what did Satan use against Jesus when he tested Him in the wilderness? He used half-truths and twisted Scripture in an attempt to tempt Jesus to sin. But God the Son used His Word to combat the enemy and cast him away.

Our minds are the most brilliant computers ever created. And like computers, they can be used for both good and evil. Our minds themselves can become idols when we place intelligence and knowledge on the pedestal of our lives.

Our minds are only good when we use them for God’s glory, not our own!

Do you think of yourself as smarter than those around you? Worse yet, do you sometimes think of yourself as smarter than God Himself? Do you KNOWingly sin against Him? Do you THINK about the sin and then do it anyway?

Then your mind has become an idol that you worship instead of Jesus.

On your knees before the Lord, ask the Holy Spirit to help renew your mind. Make a promise to Jesus that you will spend time in His Word every day so that renewal can happen. Repent of the pride of Bible knowledge for knowledge’s sake instead of pursuing a relationship with the Son.

Tomorrow we will look at Idols of Strength!

I believe Scripture is very clear that the SOUL speaks to the essence of who we are eternally. Our soul is what the enemy wants to destroy and what Jesus came to redeem. The soul is who God created in eternity past to serve Him now and for all eternity future. The soul is our BEing. It is what we BE.

In Mark 8:34-37, Jesus summoned the multitude with His disciples and said to them, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s shall save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his SOUL? For what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”

The word translated LIFE and SOUL is the same word: psyche. It is where we get the word psychology. Our life, our soul, our very who-ness is described in this word.

So how do we make our soul an idol?

Based upon this passage in Mark, I believe we idolize our souls when we idolize ourselves.

Here is the question I believe God is asking us: “What do you think is so special about your life apart from Me? Your life was lost until I found you. Only then did I make you alive in Christ and give you a purpose” (Ephesians 2:1-10). “So why do you strive in every area of your being as if you do not have an Advocate, even My Son?”

The idol of the soul is, I believe, the most all-encompassing idol. It permeates everything we do and everything we are because we fear losing it. Jesus assured us that we never will so that we could finally rest in His grace and lose our lives in Christ (1 John 5:11-12).

Worshipping the idol of the soul is the ever-present death grip on all that is important to us.

Let go.

And by doing so, find that Jesus is holding all things together according to the counsel of His will.

Colossians 1:16-17 says, “For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things have been created by Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.”

Most people do not know that the Greek word for ALL actually translates to… ALL!

There is nothing in my life or yours that is outside of God’s sovereign control.

So this idol of the soul is really the idol of unbelief; a lack of faith, a lack of trust in the God of the universe who sent His Son to hold on to US through ALL of life.

Are you ready to let go completely and fall into His nail-pierced hands?

Go to Him in prayer and ask God to reveal where you have blisters and callouses of the soul. Ask the Holy Spirit to gently help you release your grip on this life He paid the price for.

Tomorrow we will look at idols of the mind!

Jesus was asked this question in Matthew 22:36: “Teacher, which is the great (or greatest) commandment in the Law?”

Why did this Pharisee lawyer ask Jesus this question? Because the religious leaders of the day had just heard that Jesus had totally humiliated the Sadducees, and they wanted a crack at the untrained, uneducated Rabbi who was challenging the law they held so dear. So they got a lawyer to ask the question.

And Jesus did not disappoint.

He said to them, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your HEART, and with all your SOUL, and with all your MIND. This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets” (See also Luke 10:25-27 where ‘Strength’ is added).