Transforming Trials is an amazing Bible study written by my good friends, Mason and Marina Shelton.

Week 4 Day 5  focuses on James 2: 8-13

Mason and Marina’s launching pad statement: What is the opposite of favoritism?

This day is a difficult pill to swallow. It starts easy enough! What is the opposite of favoritism? Love your neighbor is!  But don’t be so quick to take the pop quiz because God has equipped these two with some amazing one liners that shut your Sunday school answer down pretty quick.  No one gets a quick pass on this day. Most of us have been near or around church so long that we know the answers yet we don’t remotely look like them.

I’m going to go a little out of order. Each day of this summer series we have ended with the powerful one liners littered through this book but today I want to hit them early.

A take-away “one liner” that hits me straight away:

 “I can’t help but picture the innocence and determination of a child when I think of “loving your neighbor as yourself” in the right way James describes here. But the sad part is, many of us only go as far as “loving” others, if it’s easy and benefits us, and this kind of favoritism is sin.”

God related to His people through the law in Biblical days! They “obeyed” the law.  If you broke one law, you were guilty of death and trust me they had in excess of 600 of them.  Today, we operate in relationship to the “perfect” law of liberty! Do you know who that is? It’s Christ. Jesus is the fulfillment of the law.  We must speak, act, walk, talk and give as people who have been judged by the law that gives freedom. That’s Jesus.  Jesus showed us great mercy with His sacrifice!  This is how we love our neighbor! Christ is our example. Love like Him. Speak Like Him. Use your hands like Him. Walk like Him.

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