James 1:1  I, James, am a slave of God and the Master Jesus, writing to the twelve tribes scattered to Kingdom Come: Hello!

James 1:2  Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides.

James 1:3  You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors.

James 1:4  So don't try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.

James 1:5  If you don't know what you're doing, pray to the Father. He loves to help. You'll get his help, and won't be condescended to when you ask for it.

James 1:6  Ask boldly, believingly, without a second thought. People who "worry their prayers" are like wind-whipped waves.

James 1:7  Don't think you're going to get anything from the Master that way,

James 1:8  adrift at sea, keeping all your options open.

James 1:9  When down-and-outers get a break, cheer!

James 1:10  And when the arrogant rich are brought down to size, cheer! Prosperity is as short-lived as a wildflower, so don't ever count on it.

James 1:11  You know that as soon as the sun rises, pouring down its scorching heat, the flower withers. Its petals wilt and, before you know it, that beautiful face is a barren stem. Well, that's a picture of the "prosperous life." At the very moment everyone is looking on in admiration, it fades away to nothing.

James 1:12  Anyone who meets a testing challenge head-on and manages to stick it out is mighty fortunate. For such persons loyally in love with God, the reward is life and more life.

James 1:13  Don't let anyone under pressure to give in to evil say, "God is trying to trip me up." God is impervious to evil, and puts evil in no one's way.

James 1:14  The temptation to give in to evil comes from us and only us. We have no one to blame but the leering, seducing flare-up of our own lust.

James 1:15  Lust gets pregnant, and has a baby: sin! Sin grows up to adulthood, and becomes a real killer.

James 1:16  So, my very dear friends, don't get thrown off course.

James 1:17  Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light. There is nothing deceitful in God, nothing two-faced, nothing fickle.

James 1:18  He brought us to life using the true Word, showing us off as the crown of all his creatures.

James 1:19  Post this at all the intersections, dear friends: Lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue, and let anger straggle along in the rear.

James 1:20  God's righteousness doesn't grow from human anger.

James 1:21  So throw all spoiled virtue and cancerous evil in the garbage. In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life.

James 1:22  Don't fool yourself into thinking that you are a listener when you are anything but, letting the Word go in one ear and out the other. Act on what you hear!

James 1:23  Those who hear and don't act are like those who glance in the mirror,

James 1:24  walk away, and two minutes later have no idea who they are, what they look like.

James 1:25  But whoever catches a glimpse of the revealed counsel of God--the free life!--even out of the corner of his eye, and sticks with it, is no distracted scatterbrain but a man or woman of action. That person will find delight and affirmation in the action.

James 1:26  Anyone who sets himself up as "religious" by talking a good game is self-deceived. This kind of religion is hot air and only hot air.

James 1:27  Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world.