Matthew 5:43-48 - paraphrased

    “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.
    “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.
    “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you (be different) know that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment.
    “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, (Be different) and leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.
    “Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. (Be different) Do it while you are still with him on the way, or he may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison. I tell you the truth, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.
     “You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you (Be different) knowing that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
     “It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I tell you (Be different) knowing that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery.
     “Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.’ But I tell you, (Be different) Do not swear at all: Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.
     “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, (Be different) Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.
     “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: (Be different) Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (and, it’s the difference that will make the difference!)

“Backslide”
 John 13:36-38 and John 18:15-18 and 25-27

   What does it mean to backslide? Webster - “To slide back; to turn away from; to go backward morally.” I want to point out just a few signs that God’s Word says are signs of a back-slidden state; 

1. First is neglect.  Hebrews 2:1-3 “We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.  For since the message spoken through angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, how shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation?” Back peddling Christians are noticed by their neglect of spiritual matters. This neglect means there is a lack of interest. It is not that they are doing everything wrong; it is just that they are doing very little right. It is not doing the things necessary to get you moving forward and continually growing in your relationship with God.
    For example, when a marriage ends in divorce, it does not always mean some-one has committed adultery. It may mean the husband has been stuck in front of the television too long. The dating has stopped. The compliments have ceased. The wife has given up and stops caring about the marriage and the home. Such passive, neglect opens the door to failure.
    Some people are in bad health not because they have gone out and done things destructive to their bodies, it’s just that they have neglected to keep in good health. Some Christians begin to regress spiritually not because they have committed gross sins. But Satan has done just enough to keep them out of the Word, he has done just enough to keep them off their knees, and really all Satan has done is just enough to cause them to neglect the things of God.
2. The second warning sign we encounter is spiritual insensitivity. Hebrews 3:12-13 “See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.  But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitful-ness.”
    I am sure most of us have met people with hard hearts. When people say, "I don’t care" that is an expression of the heart that is not sensitive anymore, that has become callused. How do we get a hard heart, Paul says we are duped into it by the deceitfulness of sin. But he also warns us against allowing an unbelieving heart to develop. An unbelieving heart doubts God and when we doubt God we open the door for sin and instead of turning to God, we will begin to turn away from Him. When we read of the children of Israel and their journey through the wilderness we find they were hardened because they had been duped by Satan. They began to doubt God and were lured to other gods…We need to understand, Satan is tricky and he will try to stop you from believing God and His promises and you will begin to believe the lure of sin.
3. The third is refusal. To refuse the spiritual diet that is necessary for growth. Hebrews 5:11-12 “We have much to say about this, but it is hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand.  In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food!
    Melchizedek, a type of Christ’s priesthood, wanted to take them into some deeper truths but then he realized he was talking to a Sesame Street generation of believers; They were “Peter Pan” Christians; They did not understand what he was saying because they refuse to grow up.  Not because they did not have oppor-tunity, but because they had a “Lackawanna.” They basically were saying, I don’t need to know this stuff, I don’t need to understand, I don’t need to study. I don’t need to apply this to my life…They had become willfully rebellious to God.
    So how can you know if you are a milk toast Christian? Has your understand-ing of the Christian faith remained at the level where you were 5, 10, or even a year ago? Are you only able to say Jesus Loves Me this I know, or are you moving into the deeper truths about God’s Word? If you can’t answer your children’s questions about the Bible with something other than ask the Pastor or the Sunday School teacher, you are “Peter Pan” Christian!
4. The fourth is withdrawal. Hebrews 10:23-25 “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without waver-ing, for He who promised is faithful; and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more, as you see the day drawing near.”
    They don’t feel like they need to be in the House of the Lord, they can do their own thing. I have heard the excuses... "I don’t need to go to church to be a Christian." This may be technically true, but, again I would resort to Dr Phil; “How’s it working for you?”   We need fellowship. We were created for fellowship. We are instructed in God’s Word to live according to all the “one anothers” and, it says we need the dynamic fellow-ship, the dynamic motivation and the dynamic inspiration that comes from the people of God. Not only do we need it, we need to give it to someone else. So those who don’t attend church are only thinking of themselves. They forgot about God and don’t care about other people. If they were looking at the church as God’s house, they would remember that God seeks our worship--   The passage in Hebrews says our job as members of the Body of Christ is to "stimulate one another to love and good deeds." Our job is not just to be blessed, our job is to be a blessing.
The last is rejection. The ones who ignore this sign will fall away from the faith, deny Christ and wind up in the rank and file of lost sinners. But when an individual gets to the point of rejection, it may be too late. How serious is it? Hebrews 10:26 states, “For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins. (Those who believe “once saved, always saved” have to get past this verse!) 
    Hebrews 10:29 says, “How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?” …(The unpardonable sin.)
    While there may be many forms of backsliding, the result is NEVER in our favor.  The result is separation from God…And, separation from the “abundant life” that Christ came to give. 

James 1:1-8
Max Lucado, In the Eye of the Storm, Word Publishing, 1991, p. 11. -
    Chippie the parakeet never saw it coming. One second he was peace-fully perched in his cage. The next he was sucked in, washed up, and blown over.  The problems began when Chippie’s owner decided to clean Chippie’s cage with a vacuum cleaner. She removed the attachment from the end of the hose and stuck it in the cage. The phone rang, and she turned to pick it up. She’d barely said "hello" when "ssssopp!" Chippie got sucked in…The bird owner gasped, put down the phone, turned off the vacuum, and opened the bag. There was Chippie -- still alive, but stunned.
    Since the bird was covered with dust and soot, she grabbed him and raced to the bathroom, turned on the faucet, and held Chippie under the running water. Then, realizing that Chippie was soaked and shivering, she did what any compassionate bird owner would do…she reached for the hair dryer and blasted the pet with hot air. Poor Chippie never knew what hit him.
    A few days after the trauma, the reporter who’d initially written about the event contacted Chippie’s owner to see how the bird was recovering. "Well," she replied, "Chippie doesn’t sing much anymore -- he just sits and stares."
    How often are we like “Chippie”? Something comes along in our lives and before we know what happened, we feel like we’ve been sucked up; spit out; and left to dry!
    In this first part of James, he gives us a look at 3 legs to the journey that is Christian maturity. The first leg of the journey of Christian Maturity is...THE PATH. (vv:2-4) “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”
    James told the Jewish believers what the path looked like. (It was bound to be filled with trials.) What kinds of trials have you been through? Wouldn’t it make more sense to you if James had said; “Consider it joy if you don’t have to go through these things?” The lessons we learn from these trials is perseverance/patience. God is still using trials to test the believer…and help us to grow and mature - both physically and spiritually.
    The second leg of the journey is....THE PERSPECTIVE. (vv:5-11) If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord”
    Wisdom allows us to see our trials from a different perspective...HIS. Imagine you and me standing before the Father and we see all the trials, tests we’ve had in our lives that He gave or allowed in order for us to grow stronger, & mature, develop our faith. INSTEAD...we got angry, bitter, cynical, critical, and envious because of them. Wisdom helps us see things from an elevated view.
    Have you ever listened to a traffic report from a guy in a helicopter? Why is he better qualified to help you than someone in the car ahead of you? The traffic reporter can see things you can’t. He is seeing the big picture, knows what is coming up around the bend......and he gives you accurate information because he see’s farther, clearer than you do in the middle of the traffic jam. He may tell you to take an alternate route. (Seems longer, out of your way, bumpier road.... but he’s trying to steer you clear of major problem that laying down the road.) Wisdom allows you to trust God in the middle of life’s jams because you know He has a good handle on things. He is in control even when we are not and don’t understand.

    With the path and perspective, it’s reassuring to know that there is something in store for those who take the journey.  The third leg of Christian Maturity is....THE PAY OFF. (vv:12)
“Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.” God not only wants to bless us with things that He can do FOR us, God wants to bless our lives with what he can do TO us AND IN us, which are far more valuable…THAT YE MAY BE PERFECT ( which means complete, whole, and mature)

In What Forms Does Suffering Come? -
1. The Lord may providentially allow suffering to come into your life for reasons of adding fertilizer for your spiritual growth thereby enabling you to bear greater fruit. (Heb. 12: 8- 12)
2. Suffering may come as a result of our own mistakes, immaturity or lack of spiritual wisdom. (Gal. 6:7)
3. Suffering may come through physical ailments. (James 5: 16)
4. Suffering may come so that God’s greater purposes could be accomplished through our lives. (John 9: 1-4)
5. Suffering may come through the persecution of the ungodly or carnal believers. (I Cor. 10: 13)
6. Suffering may come through emotional disturbances that have not been given over to the Lord’s control. (Phil. 4:6-8)
7. Suffering may come through a social disturbance. (I Cor. 13:4-7)
8. Suffering may come through our attempts to accomplish God’s will in our power. (2 Tim. 3: 12)
9. Suffering may come through economic hardships that bring everyone to a greater sense of dependence on the Lord for our provisions. (Matt. 6: 11)
10. Suffering may come as a result of a sin of omission that we are somehow overlooking in our responsibilities. (Matt. 7:7)
11. Suffering may come through our employers, supervisors or spiritual authorities for our correction and to create in us more of a humble attitude. (I Pet. 5:5,6)
    A famous evangelist told the following incident: I have a friend who in a time of business recession lost his job, a sizable fortune, and his beautiful home. To add to his sorrow, his precious wife died; yet he tenaciously held to his faith -- the only thing he had left. One day when he was out walking in search of employment, he stopped to watch some men who were doing stonework on a large church. One of them was chiseling a triangular piece of rock. ’Where are you going to put that?’ he asked. The workman said, ’Do you see that little opening up there near the spire? Well, I’m shaping this stone down here so that it will fit in up there.’