More of James 3

As I continue to read in James 3 I find these words: "13. Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom. 14. But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth." Skipping down to verse 16, "For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work, 17. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. 18. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace." Conversation  per the explanation in the resource I used was said to mean "manner of life, conduct, deportment."
I thought about a discussion I had on face book with someone. Do I promote strife with my words? As I read through these scriptures I see good conversation (good manner of life, good conduct, good deportment), meekness (mildness of disposition, gentleness of spirit), peaceable, gentle, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.   Some of these stand out to me. There is that word mercy again.  Show mercy to obtain mercy? How about without partiality? Do I speak evil of the national leaders that I did not vote for and disagree with and only speak good of the ones I agree with.  How would that stand against partiality? The fruit of righteousness? Galatians 5:22-23 says 22. "But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23. Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law."  Once again as I read these words, I think about the conversation that comes out of my mouth. Are my words gentle, spoken or written out of love? Goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, do they show forth? It really does point to what is in our hearts.  Matthew 12:34 says ... "for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." James is all about living it, where the rubber meets the road. I can do a lot of talking, but do my words represent the truth? God wants our hearts, because what is in our hearts comes out of our mouths. But if you have bitter envying and strife coming out of your mouth, there is confusion and every evil work.  When I talk or write, do I show the fruits of the spirit? What comes out of our mouths shows what is in out hearts. God wants to control our tongue and he does this by indwelling our hearts. From the inside out and not from the outside in. We must come to God just as we are, no excuses, leave the flimsy reasoning aside, just as we are. We can never in a million years make ourselves good enough. God works from the inside out, from our hearts outward. Our conversation and actions should reflect what God is doing in our hearts. We can have head knowledge, but if it doesn't get to our hearts it will not look like the wisdom from above. I was married before to a woman that even signed her name with a scripture as part of her signature. It was signed on the marriage license that way (x. xxxx xxxxxxx II Corinthians 5:8) . That is just an example of how she signed her name. I do not remember if the scripture was even in II Corinthians. I remember when we bought a house the Realtor was impressed. We can do a lot of things to point out that we are Christian, but if our speech and actions do not also say so, it probably gives Christianity a bad name.
She studied the Bible religiously, but her life didn't match. We were once separated for nine months and we would meet up at church and sit together. Leave Church and go our separate ways until the next Sunday morning.  Many times not even speaking through out the week. She studied the Bible religiously but it is like it never got from her head to her heart. Of course that marriage ended, She wanted to join that church and I talked to the Pastor. I told him exactly how it was, we were only together during church service on Sunday the rest of the week we lived apart. The Pastor, bless his heart, tried to get us into marriage counseling. It lasted for one session and she wouldn't go any more. It conflicted with her schedule.  We did get back together for about a year and then one day I came home from work and she was gone again. My Pastor at that time just advised me to let her go. You can impress people for a while with religious activities, but if its not in your heart, it will come out in a totally different manner.  God wants our hearts. Without God in our hearts its just religion. Earlier in James it talks about different types of faith. Dead, Demonic or Dynamic. Dynamic faith requires that God has our hearts as well as our intellect and emotions.  God bless, LVZ.