LIFESTYLE ATTITUDES THAT PROCLAIM THE GOSPEL

DON'T READ THIS UNTIL YOU HAVE READ THE POST IMMEDIATELY BELOW!!!


It's a bit funny when you put posts on a blogsite. Your latest one comes at the top. That works fine except when you want to say something that assumes people have read what you have said before.

In this case it is necessary in order to see the context of what I am about to put together here from the book of James in the New Testament. Having been stirred by the story told in the book(and film) "End of the Spear" I went and read the letter of James three or four times just to get a feel for the wonderful spiritual values it speaks about. If you want to proclaim a message about Christ without mentioning his name I discovered eight values that are identified in the letter as uniquely Christian. Its not to say that every single one is only espoused by Christian faith, but the package is most definitely unique. What I did was to ask the quesiton of the material in James' letter, "If every believer fully lived what James was talking about what kind of people would we be?" What I came up with was a set of trademarks of genuine Christian faith. If you are a person who has been made new by the Spirit of God, this is a picture portrait of what you are like. I will set it up as eight statements that say what Christians do


1. We rejoice when we are experiencing hardships because of what we know (1:1-18)
2. We want to be changed by the Word of God not just educated by it (1:19-27)
3. We consider all people to be important and treat all people that way (2:1-13)
4. We indicate what we believe much more by what we do than by what we say (2:14-25)
5. We use our mouth only to bless and edify people (3:1-18)
6. We don't compete with or judge anyone or anything (4:1-16)
7. We place no intrinsic value on money (5:1-12)
8. We begin to resolve every issue in the presence of God through prayer (5:13-20)