Let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation

-James 1:9-

This verse contains a provoking disparity. How can a "lowly" positioned man glory in his "exaltation"(high rank, dignity)?

   One thing we can immediately see from the context is that James is not talking about earthly riches or rank. He is talking to physically impoverished, ill-treated Christians. He is talking to a people far from home and recognition.

  Yet still, he says "glory" (rejoice)!

This is amazing and has great implications for the Church.

Do you see?

He is telling the Church to rejoice in her fixed inheritance: eternal glory with Christ. And actually, James commands the church to actively rejoice about this always.

I love that James places this command towards the beginning of His letter. This is a beautiful (and as we will see as we go further into the letter), needed reminder.

"God has established you in heavenly places, Church! Do not let the circumstances of life cause you to despair or neglect the realities of heaven!" (paraphrase)

But I'd like to point out a second application. Just as "exaltation" doesn't solely refer to earthly riches or rank, so "lowly" doesn't solely refer to earthly destitution.

It's easy to look through the Bible and think that Jesus has something against rich people. This is simply not true. There are people (though yes, few and far between) who have great riches and become His disciples. There are still more who have steady homes and jobs and who can be considered the "middle-class" of Bible times.

God isn't opposed to a man with earthly wealth; He is opposed to pride. Pride is all about self: preserving self, propagating self, indulging self. And the reason earthly riches and a heart polluted with pride are so often linked in the Bible is not because God hates the abundance of money but rather because pride loves it.  Pride breeds all kinds of excess.

Another translation for this word "lowly" is "humble." We are always to come humbly before the Lord regardless of whether He is asking us, in a specific moment, to physically depart with our riches. But we are always to be spiritually separated from our wealth. Often this means physical separation from our wealth as well, not so much for God's benefit as for ours.

This is a command of love as much as it is a warning against corruption. We should always have so much more joy in being identified with Christ in His lowly state of suffering than in any sort of earthly prominence. The moment this is not the reality of our souls is also the moment we ought to evaluate where it is that our souls have drifted.

The Bride's Joy

-Isaiah 61:10-

He has clothed me with promises, numerous

And set His seal upon mine arm

The Son asked my hand on His Father's behalf

He made no enticement, nor used any charm

His promises simple, for a babe to comprehend

Life and Breath; His Father's love

To His Bride was promised also death

Division from the world until summoned to worlds above

She signed her name and the union was announced

No devil could trample the signet ring

They tried enticing her with charms and brought her strings of bead

"Add something more beautiful to your covenant with the King

"The King never said you could not add to your beauty

The 'Most High' would not expect you to limit your reach

"After all, you are the Queen," said one, drawing near

"And the Queen has equal rights; none would name it a breach

"Sure your heart has been stolen, your strong arm, also sealed

Perhaps than grant us your mind we will help you to wield

"The power you've come into as you're too common to know

The wisdom of the serpent and the triviality of a shield

"Daughter o' the worlds, Produce o' earth

Remember who was present at the time of your birth

"Why commit treason against your mother's own hands?

And deafen the sound of your father's mirth?

Then the Bride, if she remembers the extent of her vow

Will decry that to mind & heart & soul she has no claim

And altogether the words of the devil she will curse

He has no right to recount her birth and discredit her name

And suddenly her voice will take on angelic joy

She will recount her Lover's promise, to grant her a new birthright: His own

No more bound by sin or sorrow or despair

But seated in the heavenlies on an everlasting throne

A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.

-James 1:8

       Again we are warned of the seriousness of doubt.
Outwardly, this passage is disheartening; it seems to human eyes that God has no mercy on people who struggle with doubt. But hold on, because their are different ways to deal with doubt, and God forgives those who repent of it. The point is that doubt cannot reign in your life, not that if it ever pokes its head, you are immediately condemned.
One of the Hebraic meanings of this word denotes a "two-spirited" person. How can someone who is after the world and then after God and then again back to chasing the world, how can this kind of man lay hold of any sort of truth?
We completely understand this concept when it comes to other sins, and yet when talking of doubt, we don't seem to grasp that the damage done by unchecked doubt is equivalent to unchecked adultery, hatred, or addiction.
Doubt, like all sin, becomes addictive and Master if left unchallenged.

Consider again James metaphor of the waves...
If a man is driven by winds and waves, he is incapable of reaching the shore even if someone were to come out to sea and rescue him; unless his addiction is dealt with, he will return to the sea. Every man is the author and finisher of his own destruction.
The promise of a husband that he will remain faithful to his wife does not make the wife faithful; it takes two to make a marriage pure. Yet this is exactly what God did! He was and is a faithful husband to an adulterous bride. (Read Hosea for an amazing illustration of this truth.)
We must reckon with the reality that devotion and division cannot cohabitate.