Tag Archives: Human Nature

Loving Our Neighbor

Living in the Spirit
September 7, 2018

Scripture Reading: James 2:1-17

You do well if you really fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. For the one who said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’, also said, ‘You shall not murder.’ Now if you do not commit adultery but if you murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. For judgement will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgement.

 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill’, and yet you do not ply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. –James 2:8-17

Christians tend to cherry pick the scriptures we favor and ignore the ones we do not. My guess is that is true also of other faiths. We identify as the worst sins those things we would probably never do in the first place but afford us the opportunity to judge others whose behavior we do not understand. I think much scriptural interpretation is derived from human nature rather than God’ nature. I guess that makes me a cynic. James speaks of murder and adultery representing sins without differing magnitudes. Human nature says adultery is not as serious as murder. I have been surprised that many people who claim to be pro-life support capital punishment that seems a contradiction to me. Did you know that the death certificates of executed prisoners indicate the cause of death as homicide? Federal law restricts the use of federal funds from being used for elective abortions, but our tax dollars pay for executions.

James is calling us to account for our hypocrisy when according to Jesus the primary law we are to follow if we love God, is loving our neighbors as we love ourselves that precludes the necessity of judging anyone but calls us to journey with others as they search for relationship with God.

Prayer: Lord, do a new thing in us helping us to love one another as Jesus modeled for us. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Human Nature and God

Human nature and GodLiving in the Spirit
Light a Candle for Children
September 22, 2014

 Scripture Reading: Exodus 17:1-7

 From the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. The people quarrelled with Moses, and said, ‘Give us water to drink.’ Moses said to them, ‘Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?’ But the people thirsted there for water; and the people complained against Moses and said, ‘Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?’ — Exodus 17:1-3

Human nature has not changed much over the years. We want somebody else to fix our problems. We do not want to take responsibility for the hardships we face. In all honesty sometimes those troubles get so deep that the only thing we can do is hit out against them. The truth is that we are all in life together and we are all interdependent on one another to make life better for ourselves and each other. We put one foot in front of the other and continue down the path of life in stages. Sometimes things go well; sometimes things go horribly wrong. Sometimes we are responsible for both; sometimes outsides forces are responsible for both. We are challenged to search out the things for which we are individually accountable and make the proper adjustments to correct them when they go off course. For those things that are caused by outside forces we are called to work with one another to overcome them. We never ever, however, are alone in our actions. The God who created us is always with us to sustain and comfort us and to guide us along the path. These Israelites who followed the cloud and the fire out of Egypt had forgotten that. Sometimes we forget, too.

This is never truer than when we are dealing with issues related to our children for they are still learning the ways of people and the ways of God. All adults are accountable for the future of children for children are our future.

 Oklahoma Fact: in 2013, Oklahoma ranked 39th in family and community wellbeing outcomes in the United States.*

Prayer: Creator of all, convict us of our responsibilities for children, guide us each step of the way as we strive to make a positive difference in their lives. Amen.

*2013 KIDS Count Profile: Oklahoma. Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy, www.oica.org.

  

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.