Spending Your Time on Worthy Pursuits

You may have noticed but that last two Fridays we have been moving through the book of James! We are continuing this today with a look at James 1:9-11, “Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation,” This is really something, one translation says, “The brother in humble circumstances ought to take pride in his high position.” It almost seems like James is saying to be poor is an “exaltation” or a “high position”. The poor man ought to rejoice in being poor! Why is this? 

Perhaps reading what James has to say to the rich will help us understand,

“and the rich in his humiliation,” Here James indicates the opposite for the rich. He says that a rich person should take pride in the humiliation of being rich!? What does he mean by this? Indeed, throughout history, mankind has looked on the rich as those of “high position”. The rich in our society today are the opinions most heard and sought after. There is this inward assumption that they must know something because they know how to make money. James seems to be reversing this thinking.

“because like a flower of the grass he will pass away. ¹¹ For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beauty perishes. So also, will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits.”

The most famous rich man to live will fade away, his pursuits, even when noble, will be temporary rather than eternal. Riches of the earth are kind of like tokens at Chuckie cheese, they are only useful in the store and can only buy you cheap things there. The riches we gain here are only good for us here – and James will later tell us that our lives here are just a mist, here one second and gone the next. In the words of Gary Holloway, “Money promises security and permanence but cannot deliver them.”

Here James says that the rich Christian must realize that their riches are not signs of their high position rather they are a weighty responsibility to be used for the kingdom. A rich Christian is meant to be a river not a swamp. They are meant to be a conduit that recourses flow through rather than a reserve that hoards it as much as it can. And the river rarely gets as much press as the sea, where it flows to. 

Before you dismiss this as not applying to you because you don’t view yourself as rich consider this quote I read in an article this morning, “After adjusting for cost-of-living differences, a typical American still earns an income that is 10 times the income received by the typical person in the world.” 

Those who are poor will have an easier time relying on God rather than their riches, they also will not be bothered with the worldly stresses that come with riches. From a spiritual perspective their burden is lighter, the hurdles are lower between them and God. 

The question of this text for you and I today is this, What am I pursuing with my life? In short, when you pass away will your pursuits have made a real, eternal difference? Or leave no positive sign they ever happened?

How can you use your resources to make an eternal difference in the world around you?