He said that we don’t like reading the instruction manual because we’re prideful.

In last week’s sermon, Pastor Matthew talked about there being two types of people – people that read instructions, and people that should. So with all of that being said, I wanted to borrow liberally from Pastor Matthew Bradham’s preaching at The Point Apex, Francis Chan’s teaching in his video series, and some of my own devotionals that I’ve been reading to start to write a few posts about what we’re going to be learning about. James is such a short and wonderful book in the Bible on how to live a Christian life, and there are so many simple concepts given, that although simple-sounding, are incredibly difficult to live in our daily lives. And they had also sent out some awesome resources to use in those Bible Studies, one of which was Francis Chan’s video series on the Book of James. I was overjoyed when I found out a few weeks later that The Point Church, where I sometimes play drums, was also starting a 12-week series on the Book of James, and were also going to be going deeper into it in their weekly Small Group Bible Studies as well, which I also attend. And I had decided that I wanted to start where I started myself 9 years ago in the summer of 2010, in the Book of James.

So when I started writing again and reflecting on the past, I felt called to take a step of faith and decided that I’m going to start my own Bible Study for some of these coworkers and friends that maybe don’t get to go to church every week. I’ve been fortunate in my job to have had some employees come to trust me and confide in me some deeply personal struggles they’ve gone through themselves, and with the nature of that job, it can be difficult for many employees to have off of work on Sundays or to attend church. Over the last few months, and after a lot of reflecting on what I’ve been going through, I realized that maybe one of the reasons I’m experiencing the struggles I’m facing is so that I can grow stronger in my own faith, and help be there for others when they go through their own trials, having faced some tough stuff on my own. Before that, I wrote a post titled, “ When You Hit Rock Bottom,” where I spoke vaguely about some of the trials and struggles I am going through right now in my own life. I wrote a post about Galatians 2:20, what it meant to me, and how the very first Bible Study I was ever a part of, we studied the Book of James together. A few weeks ago, I started blogging again for the first time really in some years.

Francis chan book on james