List everything James 1:13-18 tells you about God:
“‘God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He tempt anyone’ (13) He sends good and perfect thing, He is the Father of the heavenly lights, He does not change (17), He chose to give us birth, and He made us firstfruits of all He created.”
What is the enemy called in Matthew 4:3? “the tempter”
If Satan is the tempter, how does James 1:13-18 depict us as the cooperator?
“We surrender to enticements and allow them to gestate into full grown sin and death.”
A high regard for the things of this world always signals a lowering regard for God.
If we are God’s children and we regard God as holy but not ourselves as His holy possessions, how is the door still open for captivity?
“Viewing ourselves as God’s holy vessels empowers us with a confidence and a determination to stand firm against temptation, so if we don’t, we lack that resolve and strength.”
Can you relate? Or have you loved someone that, if willing, could relate? Explain how.
“Not really. I can think of a couple of friends who probably could, but even then I’m not sure.”
Have you ever felt ‘hopeless sorrow’? “no” If so, what kind of future did you picture for yourself?
“Not in this context, (though perhaps guilt over lack of it), but I think the term could also be used for grieving an unsaved loved one who is almost certainly in hell.”
Dearest Rachel –
For all that this is a fairly short session, in terms of questions and answers (although once again, some of your answers go beyond the allotted space for them; it’s not like you were a piker with your responses), there’s not much for me to add to what you’ve said here about sorrow and regret.
Part of the issue touched upon here has to do with the student (by way of the author apparently having gone through such periods in life herself) assumed to have felt unsalvageable as some point in her life, having used her “holy vessel” for “unholy purposes,” whatever that may mean. While you came to Christ later in life than I or Daniel did, that’s only on a relative scale; you were still barely into adolescence, and hadn’t had nearly the time to venture into truly ‘unholy’ situations. And while I can guarantee you’d committed many times more sins since coming to Him, just as I have (if only due to the sheer amount of time to do so, to say nothing of the opportunity to do so afforded by adulthood and urban – well, okay, suburban – life), you understood that there was nothing you could do to damage yourself beyond God’s ability to repair (not that you made any effort to push that envelope, mind you). Indeed, you observed that it would be the height of arrogance for one to think that they even commit a sin so heinous – or so many such sins – that the infinitely powerful God could not redeem them if they were to ask him to.
The only such regret or sorrow you could relate to was that of those separate from you who had to make such decisions for themselves, but who you could have influenced in such a direction. The fact that they chose not to come to Him (or rather, didn’t choose at all, which is basically the same thing) when you could have facilitated their salvation in some way weighed upon you. It’s why you worked so hard on your parents in their final decade; you didn’t want to have that regret that you didn’t do enough for them in that regard. Of course, you were still left with the uncertainty of their seeming inability to answer in the affirmative regarding their status with Him – which by definition would tend to indicate that they never got to where they needed to be.
For all that, though, there’s only so much that one can do for others in this regard, honey. As much as it may have pained you about them – as well as other friends of yours who were still on your mind even to your dying day – there was and is only so much we can do for them; the decision is up to them. We may regret a decision not made, but if we present the options to them, we cannot beat ourselves up for eternity. I’m sure that, where you are, this has been explained so much more eloquently and in more detail than I can say or even imagine. Would that I could hear the words!
Still, I guess I have to continue to do what I can for some of those same people (as well as others I encounter along the way in a similar situation) in your stead. Keep an eye on me in that case, honey, and wish me luck; I’m going to need it.
Letters to Rachel 