It’s Complicated: The Downside Of Social Distancing
December 6, 2020 / CrossRoads Moss BluffJames 1:1 NLT
This letter is from James, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. I am writing to the “twelve tribes”—Jewish believers scattered abroad.
Q. What do you miss in these distancing days?
Social distance can create anti-social .
James 4:1 NLT
What is causing the quarrels and fights among you?
Distance doesn’t just make you , it can cause you “ ” in how you do life.
- We can what we still have.
James 4:1-3 NLT
What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Don’t they come from the evil desires at war within you? You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it. And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure.
Count your blessings and keep an attitude of .
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 NLT
Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.
- We can our love and allegiance.
James 4:4-5 NLT
You adulterers! Don’t you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God? I say it again: If you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God. Do you think the Scriptures have no meaning? They say that God is passionate that the spirit he has placed within us should be faithful to him.
Stay before God and strong against the devil.
James 4:6-8 NLT
And he gives grace generously. As the Scriptures say, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.Come close to God, and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world.
- We can and against “them.”
James 4:11-12 NLT
Don’t speak evil against each other, dear brothers and sisters. If you criticize and judge each other, then you are criticizing and judging God’s law. But your job is to obey the law, not to judge whether it applies to you. God alone, who gave the law, is the Judge. He alone has the power to save or to destroy. So what right do you have to judge your neighbor?
Stick to them and leave the to Him.
Matthew 7:3 NLT
Why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own?
- We can miss and all that a relationship with Him makes available to us.