Bible

I really don't want to write anything at the moment.

I've been trying to memorize the book of James for the past week. I've got the first chapter and half of chapter two down. I take a paragraph a day because it takes effort remembering the verses from the previous day.

I just want to say two things. First, memorizing scripture is amazing. I haven't regularly memorize scripture since high school Bible class, and now I'm beginning to realize how helpful it is to my spiritual sustenance. When I'm put in a situation that requires a decision to be made the verse "If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God who gives generously to all, without finding fault, and it will be given to him." (I double checked on BibleGateway if I got the passage correct and they actually have it wrong. They use "you" instead of "him," possibly to be more politically correct.) If I find myself facing a difficult situation I think of "Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love Him." At Church I think of "Do not merely listen to the word, do what it says . . . the one who looks intently into the perfect law which bring freedom, and continues to do so, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it, he will be blessed in what he does." I need to work on punctuation.

But when you do this, when you memorize scripture like James, you realize how impossible it is to live the Christian life. I just memorize this tonight "But if you show favoritism you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking them all." Then in a previous verse it says "If anyone considers himself religious yet does not keep a tight reign on his tongue he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. Religion that God the Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

Seriously, almost every verse is as convicting as the next and I start wondering what kind of Christian I am. "If you show special attention . . . have you not discriminated amongst yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?" We're hopeless, no wonder the world is as wrecked as its ever been. I was born to Christian parents who brought me up straight as an arrow yet every single one of these verses preaches that I am not who I think I am. I am just as corrupt as the next guy.

Thank God for His grace and mercy. I just wish my life would better reflect that.