Has someone ever made you feel worthless?
It could have been a bad relationship, it could have been a teacher or family member but many of us have experienced this feeling and for some, it can bad enough to have a negative impact on their whole life.
If we’re lucky, it’s a temporary feeling and can even be brought on by ourselves during a very bad week.
Maybe we’re trying to train a dog or fighting to get a horse to stop being afraid of a plastic bag and we’ve just gotten nowhere this week in the time we have.
Then one of our kids gets angry with us because we disciplined them, our wife misunderstands something and went to bed angry and we just stripped a bolt trying to fix an oil leak.
It’s pretty easy to feel worthless after all those events pile up.
God doesn’t want us to feel that way and uses James to help teach that.
James 1:9-11 Believers in humble circumstances ought to take pride in their high position. 10 But the rich should take pride in their humiliation— since they will pass away like a wild flower. 11 For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant; its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way, the rich will fade away even while they go about their business.
James is first speaking to those believers who have very little but calls attention to the understanding that as believers, they do in fact have a high position—they are saved through faith in Jesus and are assured eternity in Heaven.
Now, imagine you’re a wealthy Christian and that wealth is important to you. You’re proud that you worked hard for it, saved where you could and made good financial decisions and investments that have left you able to support missions while living in a great house. In verse 10, imagine taking that wealth and offering it to God in front of everyone you know, but God turns it away saying it means nothing to Him.
That would be a truly humiliating experience.
But that’s not the point. God doesn’t want to humiliate us. He loves us more than anything.
What James is telling us God wants to see is simply us, loving Him. He needs nothing from us and in eternity, anything we’ve worked for or gained here, doesn’t go with us to Heaven.
Material possessions eventually break down and decay and wealth just transfers to someone else.
James 1:18 He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.
Through our understanding of the Gospel, how we are saved from God’s wrath through Jesus’s death on the cross and resurrection, we are made worthy to be in God’s presence.
In the Old Testament, before any of a harvest could be consumed by us, an offering from it had to be made to God first.
He was given the first fruits of the harvest. Here, James is showing us that at that time, they were considered the first fruits of God’s harvest—those who were coming to a saving faith in him through what Jesus did.
The expectation is that there would be a bigger harvest that we are a part of now.
Cowboys of the Cross is a rodeo/bull riding ministry that leads cowboy church services at events and maintains an online presence to share the gospel and make disciples among the ranch and rodeo community. They can be found at CowboysOfTheCross.com
.png)
