James is a very dense book. Dense in that there are several take-away points in every chapter. The first chapter is no exception. A few years ago, when I was attending a small church, the pastor went on a brief sabbatical and I filled in for five weeks behind the pulpit. I pulled five sermons out of the first chapter of James, and I could have easily done more than that.
Right now I am going to focus on vv. 19-27 (and will probably do the rest of the chapter in future years as I hopefully remain faithful to this blog and continue to revise my chapter-by-chapter thoughts), mostly because those are the verses most applicable to my own life at the moment.
One of the primary reasons I made the commitment to write thoughts several days a week on a chapter of the Bible was that I found myself slacking in my own study. I would do the reading, but it wouldn't seep in. I was looking in the mirror and then forgetting what I looked like. It was affecting my life. I was becoming bitter with my life circumstances. Since I started this practice, I do recognize a shift in my mindset. While I can't say that I'm joyful with my life circumstances yet, I'm not bitter now either. It has significantly helped my marriage.
Perhaps the biggest struggle for me was guarding my tongue. As James points out in v. 26, my religion became futile. Considering that most of my human interaction since my wife and I moved is with my Hindu in-laws, this was a problem. I generally reserve speaking about living with Asperger's to my other blog, but I think this verse is particularly important with those of us who profess Christ living on the autism spectrum. Neurologically, we have a propensity to not hold our tongue. We tend to speak whatever is on our mind and offend people while doing it. We then use our neurological framework as an excuse. That isn't what God wants. We are as responsible for holding our tongues as anyone else is. Just because it is harder for us, doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. Those not on the spectrum generally have a harder time neurologically following rules than we do, but that doesn't mean that they don't have to follow rules. Holding our tongue is the hard part for us, but we are still responsible for doing it.
We all need to take an honest look at ourselves in the mirror and, in the light of Scripture, evaluate where we are and where we need to be.
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