Weekend Sermon -- James 1:5-8

 Welcome to this week's sermon. I hope that you are all doing well and are in good health.

For the past couple of weeks now, we've been studying in the book of James. Last week, the focus was on the trials that can often come to us in the course of this life. Often, we can't understand what the Lord's purpose for our lives is during times of trials and testing. At these times, James tells us in verse 5 to ask the Lord for wisdom. I believe that if we truly ask the Lord to reveal to us His will for us that He will do it. We have to truly be sincere, and we must be willing to learn and implement God's will and God's way for us.

This leads us into the broader area of asking for wisdom and guidance from the Lord. We will often find ourselves in situations at work and in our relationships when we don't know just what to do. At these moments, we can ask the Lord for wisdom in order to make the proper decisions.

This section of James also deals with exercising faith when making requests of the Lord. When we pray, we must truly believe that God will do what we ask as long as it is in keeping with His will. For instance, we know that God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. When we pray that someone will come to faith in Jesus, we must believe that God can and will bring about His ultimate will. We must not doubt that God has the power to change the heart of any person.

James also warns us against being double-minded and unstable in our faith. Many of us will have a doubt now and again, but we must not allow them to take root in our minds. In order to have a steady faith in the Lord, we need to know what we believe and why we believe it. We gain this knowledge and confidence in God through the diligent study of Scripture. We also grow in our knowledge of and confidence in the Lord when we spend time with the Lord in prayer and meditation. The closer we are to Jesus, the more we know how much He loves us. This helps us to have faith in Him and trust in His goodness. Amen.

Prayer Requests

The forecast for my area is for heavy rain. Please pray that it does not rain too much and cause flooding or damage.

Please pray for those in Alabama who were hit by the tornado. Pray that they will receive the aid needed to recover.

Pray for an end to the coronavirus pandemic. Pray that the sick will recover.

Pray for peace in this world. Let us focus our prayers on Afghanistan, Syria and Yemen.

For our prayer focus countries this week, let us pray for Malaysia and Togo.

Next week, we will continue in James. I will post the verses on Monday, and I will try to post on Wednesday. May God bless you all.