Lesson 16: Faith of true priorities
James 4:11-17 
11 Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge.
12 There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?
13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”—
14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.
15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”
16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.
17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

Our priorities for life in this world need to be set according to God’s standards rather than our own. In our verses today we see two kinds of priorities – those regarding our relationships with others, and those regarding our own life.

 Too often in our relationships with others we either talk about them to others (gossip) or we try to “fix” them by making them more like ourselves. A well-known verse which is often quoted the wrong way shows us our problem – Luke 6:31 says, “As you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.” We often turn it around and say, “as you have done to me, so I will do to you.”

 We want God to treat us as a unique person, having a special plan for our lives. That is how others want us to treat them, too!


 Our priorities for our own lives are most often about things we want here and now, with little thought for anything in eternity. Sometimes we think that eternity will take care of itself, and we do not need to worry about it. After all, we will be in Heaven where everything will be perfect. But this should never be our attitude, for God gave us this life to prepare for eternity. What we do here will, in many ways, affect our eternal life in Heaven too. Believing in Jesus and accepting Him as our Savior gives us entrance to Heaven and eternal life. But there are also other things to be considered. Jesus’ parable in Matthew 25:14-30 tells us He has given us things (money, time, abilities, opportunities, and more) here which He wants us to use for His eternal kingdom and which affect our position there forever. We must place our priority for our whole life and all we have into serving Him here rather than serving our own desires.

Memorize: Ephesians 4:32 - Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.