Introduction: The book of James is an epistle (letter) written by our Lord's half-brother that teaches us how genuine faith is always proven by good works.

James 1:4 — Patience is the proof of spiritual maturity. We know we’ve arrived spiritually when we can sit still and wait on God without angst or alarm.

James 1:4 — The man who can wait on God has spiritually arrived. It is a sure sign of spiritual maturity to patiently leave things in God’s hands rather than impetuously taking them into your own hands.

James 1:20 —The cliched fists of a hothead can never serve as holy hands that do God’s work.

James 1:22 — Biblical doctrine is not intended to be merely learned, but lived out. As D. L. Moody taught, “Every Bible should be bound in shoe leather.”

James 1:23-25 — The Bible is a mirror that we look into to see who we are in Christ. Afterward, we should never forget who we are, lest we fail to do what the Bible says and live our lives as a Christian should.

James 2:26 — Just as your body without your spirit is dead, so is the body of Christ without the Spirit of Christ. Many a contemporary church is actually a corpse, built and operated by the power of man’s flesh rather than by the power of God’s Spirit.

James 3:2-8 — The Bible says a man who can tame his tongue is a perfect man, because any man who can stop sinning with his tongue can stop sinning altogether. Unfortunately, as the Bible also teaches, no sinful man can tame his tongue nor achieve sinless perfection.

A wagging tongue is worse than wicked hands and men slip far more often with their tongue than with their feet.

James 3:2, 8 — If one can bridle his tongue he can bridle his temperament, but since man is incapable of taming his tongue, there is no such thing as a sinless man.

James 3:6 — The Christian’s tongue should be set on fire from Heaven—spreading the Gospel—not on fire from Hell—spreading gossip. (see also Acts 2:3)

James 4:4 — Make no mistake about it; to get along with the world you must go along with the world, but if you’re going along with the world you’re not getting along with God. 

James 4:6 — God frowns on and opposes the proud—the self-fixated—but smiles on and gives grace to the humble—the self-forgetful.

James 4:7 —Christians are to resist the devil and reckon themselves dead to sin, not resist sin and reckon the devil dead to them. Doing the latter rather than the former not only gives sin an upper hand over you, but also gives Satan a free hand with you. (Romans 6:11)

James 5:16 — Earnestness is essential to prayer and fervency a fundamental. As Adam Clark taught, “Prayer requires more of the heart than the tongue.” Words without heart to Heaven never go.

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