13 Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.”
14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”
16 As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil.
17 If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.
James 4:13-17
Dearly Beloved,
Greetings in the Name of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ!
Do you plan?
What kind of plans do you make?
When you make plans in your life, exactly how certain are you that you will be able to fulfill those plans?
In this terse passage that speaks deeply towards establishing a theology of planning for an authentic Christian, James sets out the biblical framework:
Remember that accurate Scriptural understanding necessitates the accurate understanding of context; and in this case, we observe that James brings up ‘planning’ after speaking to the problems of fights and quarrels within the church, followed by brusque words against slandering and judging one another.
This reveals the extremely broad latitude of ‘planning’, which we – as Christians - are required to consider.
This spectrum of planning includes the ‘planning’ of how we may be ‘peace-makers’ in the events of fights, quarrels, slanders and improper judgments made against a fellow Christian, or even how we should respond when such transgressions happen to us.
Far from stifling us, the Lord intends for us to ‘live to the full’ (John 10:10), which only happens when we recognize His gracious sovereignty in our lives, and His perfect love for us.
Why would we NOT want HIS PLANS to come to pass in our lives, considering that ours has never worked out for the best, nor has it ever worked out in the way we intended?
It comes down to trust and awareness.
Do you trust God? Are you aware of your state of existence?
If you do, these theological implications abstracted from James 4:13-17 would lay a biblical groundwork for us in developing our understanding of how we should plan for our lives in every aspect.
Don’t plan as if you are still an unbeliever. (v13)
Decide this moment, and resolve to live as a believer. In this, plan as one.
Live in ‘Kingdom’ tension.
Recognize that we live in the age of God’s Kingdom that is ‘already, and not yet’, and in a world where there are two distinct groups of people; believers and unbelievers.
In this age and world, there is an existential tension between the spiritual and the material, good and evil, justice and injustice, righteousness and wickedness, eternal and temporal.
Live in this tension, but choose this day to live as a believer of the One, True and Living God; whose Son, Jesus Christ, has died for the sake of our sins - becoming our righteousness before God, and whose Spirit resides in our lives right now, enabling and empowering us as His agents in the inbreaking of His Kingdom.
As such, plan as a believer.
Plan with God’s loving purposes in mind and heart.
Plan, recognizing Christ’s accomplished propitiation for the sake of the world on Calvary’s Cross.
Plan to live in the Holy Spirit’s power in bearing witness for our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
Don’t plan in evil confidence (v13b, 16)
As a believer, never be presumptuous. You do not know what the next moment brings, no one does. You could continue living, or you could die in a heartbeat.
If you doubt my last statement, well, that’s being presumptuous.
Don’t be.
‘Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow.’
A presumptuous heart is an ungrateful heart, devoid of the recognition of, and reverence for, the Creator and Sustainer of life itself.
No creature will ever find purpose apart from the Creator; and no human can ever be certain of life apart from the knowledge that we exist because God allows us to.
Plan in divine perspective (v14)
What is divine perspective?
It is the concurrent awareness of an infinite, unlimited, Righteous and Eternal God, and an equally acute awareness of our own finite, limited, unrighteous and temporal existence.
What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
That’s all we are, truly insignificant in the grand scheme of life; and yet we know with great certainty, that God has a wonderful plan for our lives, and a destiny of significance for us in fulfilling roles and tasks in His Kingdom – if only we learn how to seek His will and plans for our lives.
So we may not know what will happen, but we know for sure that God will lead us.
When we plan, we head into the unknown. But when we plan with God, He goes with us, and in fact, leads us into the unknown.
Thus, plan in a way where you have to trust God.
If you get the sense that God has to trust you, you are planning wrongly… you are simply not planning in divine perspective.
Pray when you plan; plan when you pray. (v15)
‘Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”
When James invokes ‘the Lord’s will’, we must immediately arrive at the revelation that the Lord’s Prayer must frame our plans.
When we plan, do we plan in absolute recognition that
In our prayers, be mindful that our plans must line up with God’s. He does not need to line up with ours.
Again, presumptuousness is simply absurd, and pure idiocy.
Plan with God, not against Him.
In lining our lives with God’s perfect plan for us, James reveals the encompassing latitude in which the believer requires in establishing a theology of planning.
‘If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.’ (v17)
James is simply saying, ‘Plan to do good; if not, it is sin.’
The omission of goodness is the commission of wickedness.
Let’s be clear; inaction to God’s ways and Will is sin.
Therefore, be mindful of omission when you plan.
Never withhold the Spirit’s Fruit (Galatians 5:22-23)
Can you imagine that our Lord Jesus Christ died on the Cross for the ‘forgiveness is of all sin, of all sorts of sin, original or actual, greater or lesser, public or private, open or secret, of omission or commission, of heart, lip, and life?’ (Ref: Gill’s notes on the Bible)
In living intentionally as a believer, one must plan intentionally as a believer.
Christ had to die for our sins from the commission of our wickedness, as well as the omission of our goodness.
When we plan, stay away from wickedness; and at the same time, plan to live out God’s goodness through our lives.
Plan for love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, as our goals, responses and processes of life.
It is the Holy Spirit’s Fruit, therefore, ask to be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit. This is never within the grasp of our human abilities… only God can help us plan and accomplish that which He has designed and destined for us.
Remember the 3 steps to ‘Uncommon’ Grace? (James 4:6-10)
This is a precise liturgy for us to come before God as we pray in our planning, and plan in our prayers.
Plan with God; don’t come to God with a plan.
And why shouldn’t we? Who is this God in whom we can fully trust with our lives, our plans and our destinies?
This is who He is.
11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
12 Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.
13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
14 I will be found by you,” declares the Lord.
Jeremiah 29:11-14.
Consider this, brethren… if our God indeed has plans to prosper us, not harm us, and plans to give us a hope and a future, shouldn’t we call on Him, come and pray to Him, and seek Him for His plans for us?
So instead of praying, “God bless what I would like to do”, learn to pray, “God, please allow me to do what You bless”
Seek the Lord, and discover God’s plan for your life.
I assure you, it will be ‘immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.’ (Ephesians 3:20) Christ is able to do just that – if only You would let Him work within you.
Brethren, I pray that you would seek God’s plan for your life. It will be your greatest joy yet.
I know this well, for this has been my experience.
May it be yours as well.
Shalom.
Let us pray.
Our Father in Heaven,
Hallowed be Your Name.
Your Kingdom come, Your Will be done; on earth, as it is in heaven.
Thank You for revealing to me that You have a plan and destiny for my life that is immeasurably more than all I can ask or imagine.
Thank you for the plans that You have for me; plans to prosper me, not to harm me; plans to give me a hope and a future.
Consecrate me, Lord; that I may experience the joy of your presence, purpose and power within me.
Holy Spirit, please guide my thoughts that I may plan fully trusting my Father in Heaven and bless me with the ability to understand the world through a heavenly and eternal perspective.
May I always plan with the Triune God in mind.
Lord, I resolve to plan
Thank you for also reminding me of my ‘misty’ existence, which may only be substantiated by Your presence, purpose and power in my life.
Lord, may I always call upon You, draw near and pray to You; and thank you for Your assurance that You will listen to me, and that I will find You – when I seek You with all my heart.
I do, and I will, Lord.
Please keep me from wickedness, and grant me the wisdom and courage to never withhold Your Goodness that must flow through my life into the world.
God, please allow, guide and empower me to do what you bless.
May Your Will be done in our lives on earth, as it is in Heaven.
I thank you and pray all these in the Name of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen.
14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”
16 As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil.
17 If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.
James 4:13-17
Dearly Beloved,
Greetings in the Name of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ!
Do you plan?
What kind of plans do you make?
When you make plans in your life, exactly how certain are you that you will be able to fulfill those plans?
In this terse passage that speaks deeply towards establishing a theology of planning for an authentic Christian, James sets out the biblical framework:
- As Christians, we must plan; but we must plan with a divine deference to God. Simply put – we pray when we plan, and plan when we pray; and when we pray, we pray, “God’s Will be done, in our plans on earth, as it is in heaven.”
- When you think about plans, don’t just think about your life, family, or career.
Remember that accurate Scriptural understanding necessitates the accurate understanding of context; and in this case, we observe that James brings up ‘planning’ after speaking to the problems of fights and quarrels within the church, followed by brusque words against slandering and judging one another.
This reveals the extremely broad latitude of ‘planning’, which we – as Christians - are required to consider.
This spectrum of planning includes the ‘planning’ of how we may be ‘peace-makers’ in the events of fights, quarrels, slanders and improper judgments made against a fellow Christian, or even how we should respond when such transgressions happen to us.
- When we plan, we must think so far as it is the Lord whose Will transcends and trumps ours.
Far from stifling us, the Lord intends for us to ‘live to the full’ (John 10:10), which only happens when we recognize His gracious sovereignty in our lives, and His perfect love for us.
Why would we NOT want HIS PLANS to come to pass in our lives, considering that ours has never worked out for the best, nor has it ever worked out in the way we intended?
It comes down to trust and awareness.
- Trust in a God who has proven indisputably that He is God - who loves and cares for us; and
- Awareness in our own paltry, frail, and limited existence whilst on this side of eternity.
Do you trust God? Are you aware of your state of existence?
If you do, these theological implications abstracted from James 4:13-17 would lay a biblical groundwork for us in developing our understanding of how we should plan for our lives in every aspect.
Don’t plan as if you are still an unbeliever. (v13)
Decide this moment, and resolve to live as a believer. In this, plan as one.
Live in ‘Kingdom’ tension.
Recognize that we live in the age of God’s Kingdom that is ‘already, and not yet’, and in a world where there are two distinct groups of people; believers and unbelievers.
In this age and world, there is an existential tension between the spiritual and the material, good and evil, justice and injustice, righteousness and wickedness, eternal and temporal.
Live in this tension, but choose this day to live as a believer of the One, True and Living God; whose Son, Jesus Christ, has died for the sake of our sins - becoming our righteousness before God, and whose Spirit resides in our lives right now, enabling and empowering us as His agents in the inbreaking of His Kingdom.
As such, plan as a believer.
Plan with God’s loving purposes in mind and heart.
Plan, recognizing Christ’s accomplished propitiation for the sake of the world on Calvary’s Cross.
Plan to live in the Holy Spirit’s power in bearing witness for our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
Don’t plan in evil confidence (v13b, 16)
As a believer, never be presumptuous. You do not know what the next moment brings, no one does. You could continue living, or you could die in a heartbeat.
If you doubt my last statement, well, that’s being presumptuous.
Don’t be.
‘Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow.’
A presumptuous heart is an ungrateful heart, devoid of the recognition of, and reverence for, the Creator and Sustainer of life itself.
No creature will ever find purpose apart from the Creator; and no human can ever be certain of life apart from the knowledge that we exist because God allows us to.
Plan in divine perspective (v14)
What is divine perspective?
It is the concurrent awareness of an infinite, unlimited, Righteous and Eternal God, and an equally acute awareness of our own finite, limited, unrighteous and temporal existence.
What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
That’s all we are, truly insignificant in the grand scheme of life; and yet we know with great certainty, that God has a wonderful plan for our lives, and a destiny of significance for us in fulfilling roles and tasks in His Kingdom – if only we learn how to seek His will and plans for our lives.
So we may not know what will happen, but we know for sure that God will lead us.
When we plan, we head into the unknown. But when we plan with God, He goes with us, and in fact, leads us into the unknown.
Thus, plan in a way where you have to trust God.
If you get the sense that God has to trust you, you are planning wrongly… you are simply not planning in divine perspective.
Pray when you plan; plan when you pray. (v15)
‘Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”
When James invokes ‘the Lord’s will’, we must immediately arrive at the revelation that the Lord’s Prayer must frame our plans.
When we plan, do we plan in absolute recognition that
- He is our Father in Heaven?
- His Name must be hallowed?
- His Will will be done, on earth, as it is heaven?
- He alone provides our daily bread?
- He alone forgives us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us?
- He does not lead us into temptation?
- He alone delivers us from the evil one.
In our prayers, be mindful that our plans must line up with God’s. He does not need to line up with ours.
Again, presumptuousness is simply absurd, and pure idiocy.
Plan with God, not against Him.
In lining our lives with God’s perfect plan for us, James reveals the encompassing latitude in which the believer requires in establishing a theology of planning.
‘If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.’ (v17)
James is simply saying, ‘Plan to do good; if not, it is sin.’
The omission of goodness is the commission of wickedness.
Let’s be clear; inaction to God’s ways and Will is sin.
Therefore, be mindful of omission when you plan.
Never withhold the Spirit’s Fruit (Galatians 5:22-23)
Can you imagine that our Lord Jesus Christ died on the Cross for the ‘forgiveness is of all sin, of all sorts of sin, original or actual, greater or lesser, public or private, open or secret, of omission or commission, of heart, lip, and life?’ (Ref: Gill’s notes on the Bible)
In living intentionally as a believer, one must plan intentionally as a believer.
Christ had to die for our sins from the commission of our wickedness, as well as the omission of our goodness.
When we plan, stay away from wickedness; and at the same time, plan to live out God’s goodness through our lives.
Plan for love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, as our goals, responses and processes of life.
It is the Holy Spirit’s Fruit, therefore, ask to be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit. This is never within the grasp of our human abilities… only God can help us plan and accomplish that which He has designed and destined for us.
Remember the 3 steps to ‘Uncommon’ Grace? (James 4:6-10)
- Come near to God;
- Consecrate yourself; and
- Commit your circumstances to the Lord.
This is a precise liturgy for us to come before God as we pray in our planning, and plan in our prayers.
Plan with God; don’t come to God with a plan.
And why shouldn’t we? Who is this God in whom we can fully trust with our lives, our plans and our destinies?
This is who He is.
11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
12 Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.
13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
14 I will be found by you,” declares the Lord.
Jeremiah 29:11-14.
Consider this, brethren… if our God indeed has plans to prosper us, not harm us, and plans to give us a hope and a future, shouldn’t we call on Him, come and pray to Him, and seek Him for His plans for us?
So instead of praying, “God bless what I would like to do”, learn to pray, “God, please allow me to do what You bless”
Seek the Lord, and discover God’s plan for your life.
I assure you, it will be ‘immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.’ (Ephesians 3:20) Christ is able to do just that – if only You would let Him work within you.
Brethren, I pray that you would seek God’s plan for your life. It will be your greatest joy yet.
I know this well, for this has been my experience.
May it be yours as well.
Shalom.
Let us pray.
Our Father in Heaven,
Hallowed be Your Name.
Your Kingdom come, Your Will be done; on earth, as it is in heaven.
Thank You for revealing to me that You have a plan and destiny for my life that is immeasurably more than all I can ask or imagine.
Thank you for the plans that You have for me; plans to prosper me, not to harm me; plans to give me a hope and a future.
Consecrate me, Lord; that I may experience the joy of your presence, purpose and power within me.
Holy Spirit, please guide my thoughts that I may plan fully trusting my Father in Heaven and bless me with the ability to understand the world through a heavenly and eternal perspective.
May I always plan with the Triune God in mind.
Lord, I resolve to plan
- With the Father’s Heart;
- In the reality of Christ’s finished work on the Cross and victory over death; and
- With the Holy Spirit’s guidance.
Thank you for also reminding me of my ‘misty’ existence, which may only be substantiated by Your presence, purpose and power in my life.
Lord, may I always call upon You, draw near and pray to You; and thank you for Your assurance that You will listen to me, and that I will find You – when I seek You with all my heart.
I do, and I will, Lord.
Please keep me from wickedness, and grant me the wisdom and courage to never withhold Your Goodness that must flow through my life into the world.
God, please allow, guide and empower me to do what you bless.
May Your Will be done in our lives on earth, as it is in Heaven.
I thank you and pray all these in the Name of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen.