James - What We Ought To Do

We made it! It’s Friday! This week has felt exceptionally long and I’m every excited for the weekend. Have you ever had one of those weeks that you are sure has been going on longer than 5 days? It’s felt more like 50. That has been this week for me. So many things to get done, so many places to be.

As we are heading into the final chapter of James, there was a verse that really spoke to me this week. I’m sure it’s because of how busy my week was. It caused me to pause and think over my actions this week and is always a good reminder moving forward.

Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it.

James 4:17

When we think of sin we often think only of the “Big Bad Sins”. We think of the ones that are clear to us that God has said we must not do those things. Doesn’t mean we don’t do them, just that we know we shouldn’t. I think we often focus on those because when we committed those kinds of sins we have a strong feeling/response to them. But the sin described up above is something different.

The verse above causes us to look at sin through a different lens. It makes us look at the things we choose not to do, even though we know God is asking us to or it is aligned with His ways. Helping someone put that buggy back at the grocery store, calling a friend you haven’t heard from in awhile to check in, buying someone dinner, or giving money to someone who is begging for it; all are examples of things that I knew I should do but didn’t at some point in the past.

What we know we ought to do is going to look different for each of us in individual moments. God moves us all in different ways and we need to be listening for His leading.

I think it’s easy for us, for me, to forget that not doing what I know I should do is sin because it doesn’t usually have a “bad” feeling attached to it. It’s easy to move on from or simply to justify it as being a nonissue in the moment. However, on more than one occasion God has convicted me of not doing those things and I want so badly to have made a different choice.

I’m a flawed human being and I fail at this more times than I succeed, but I want to be more aware of what I ought to be doing. I want to remember, even when I’m busy, that when I know I should do something that I need to act on it. That I cannot allow myself to believe it’s okay to skip it, that it’s not a sin. God’s word is clear on this matter.

This weekend, whatever it may be, let’s do what we know we ought be doing.

To Everything There Is A Season…

Kiley Ann