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Paul and James view on works are the same. James is talking about faith and the good works that true faith produces. Paul is talking about the same faith that produces good works; he is saying that a person is saved by this faith and the works that faith does, (that it is a gift or God, grace from God to believers) not the works or keeping of Old Covenant Laws.

Whereas a demon does not respect and obey God, he definitely knows that there is only one true God and who He is. The belief of a practicing Christian is faith in God as we are dependent on Him, we trust in Him, not just believe that He exists and our faith will produce good works, doing things that help others---unlike a non-practicing Christian whose faith produces no works, who think they need to have only faith whether they have works or not. A non-practicing Christian just have their belief in the fact that God exists; they even may be religious and say the right things but faith without works is dead.

We are responsible for helping anyone who comes into our association that we are able to help. Sure it starts with those in our church community just as it should start with your immediate family members. 1 Tim 5:8 says "But those who won’t care for their relatives, especially those in their own household, have denied the true faith. Such people are worse than unbelievers." But we are our brother's keepers. If God blesses us abundantly, He blesses us to bless others. God did not give to us just so that we can hoard for ourselves. If we are not to show partially and show love, we help anyone that we can. James 1:26 says...."Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress..."

True faith produces works. If your faith has no works or actions to prove it then it is dead in fact not true saving faith. It is the Holy Spirit that prompts us to good works. We must be listening for Him and will ourselves to do what He says. The more we pray and ask God to change our wants and desires and He does, obedience becomes not such a struggle. We will always have trials and tests but it is faith that keeps us going.

True faith produces works. If your faith does not works or actions to prove it then it is dead in fact not true saving faith.

Showing partiality toward a rich person is denial of mercy in that mercy is not giving one something that he deserves. A rich man is catered to if we are favoring him. He may have deficiency in his moral character but we are favoring him and not extending mercy to the poor man, not giving the poor man our attention, having evil thoughts toward the poor man. We were sinners when God loved us and gave His Son to be our Atonement for our sins. That is God showing mercy to us rather than pronouncing judgment on us of death which we deserve. Judgment and mercy both MUST be gratified. Judgment demand that we must be condemned, but mercy pleads that believers be saved. That is how mercy triumphs over judgment; have victory over judgment. MERCY IS NOT GIVING US WHAT WE DESERVE. We must extend mercy to others, give them chance after chance just as God does with us. This is showing love toward our fellow man.

James refers the Great Commandment as the royal law for the same reason that it is more royal than the Mosiac Law. It is because it is spiritual, and comes from the heart and takes precedence over the physical law of Moses. Showing favoritism to a rich person breaks the law because when you show favoritism to whomever or whatever you are being selfish, looking out for yourself and that is not what the royal law of love is. The royal law of love is loving your neighbor as yourself and if you are favoring that person for the way he looks or what he has it is simply because you think you can benefit from him in someway, not judging or loving that person for his moral character. You break the law in regard to a poor person in that you think that this person is not worth your consideration because this person doesn' t look a certain way or does not have riches and cannot offer you anything or benefit you in someway. This is definetly not showing love or respect for the individual and judging and loving him for his moral character.

Favoritism makes one a judge by us making the decision whom we think is important and should have our utmost attention and who is not. Because we treat the rich or well dressed people with more respect it is because we think that we need to be associated with them and in somehow it will make us important or in some way to our benefit or advantage. Our evil thoughts are that we in the first place take it upon ourselves to judge people who are strangers on their appearance or what we may know of their status. And then we are judging, not with the right rules but with rules that could help us, not righteous rules that we look on a person's moral character or someother basis rather than what they look like or what they have or do not have.

This question and the Holy Spirit has opened my mind and made me look deep into my heart and has showed me that I have shown favoritism. I have discriminated racially, and the example that James is talking about here in James 2. Being a poor person myself and you can be poor and have a decent income, I have discriminated against the poor. I have discriminated against the rich. I have discriminated against political parties. I have discriminated against people who commit sins that I thought I did not or could not commit. Oh the Lord has given me so much to ask for forgiveness for and to overcome this sin. When I think about whom I have been trying to make a good impression on in the past it was basically everyone. And the only One I need to please is my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Help me Holy Spirit to humble myself before God.

Listening and gaining knowledge can be determined by us that that is all we need to be deemed righteous. Hearing only can make us feel good, make us feel like we are doing right because we agree with what we hear. We may be like what Paul talked about in Roman 6:1 that because we are living under grace therefore we have no need to do anything else, which is not correct. If we do not examine ourselves on a continual basis we may get complacent and do not realize that we are only hearing and not doing what we hear. Quote---knowing without practicing is self-deception.

We are given spiritual birth by the word of truth in that when we confess our sins and surrender our lives totally to Jesus we receive the Holy Spirit to live inside of us. This is what is called being born again and found in one place in John 3 when Jesus was explaining it to Nicodemus. The Word of Truth is the gospel, the good news of Jesus, His life, His death, His burial and His ressurection. Jesus is the Word, the way, the truth and the life...John 14:6. When you receive Jesus as your personal Savior and the Holy Spirit is placed in you, we are to walk by the Spirit, to walk in the spirit and not in the flesh. We now have a spiritual life and not a fleshly life, even though we will fail from time to time.

The promise that God gives to us in this verse is if we need wisdom to ask Him for it. And He will not find fault or criticize us for asking for it. But we must ask in faith, believing wholeheartedly in God and not have divided loyaties; not having hope one minute and wavering in our faith the next. Trials help us receive this wisdom by one thing showing us that we have to depend on God for our deliverance. Trials help up realize that we have to make the right decision that God is showing us and not lean on our own understanding.

One reason I think that people blame God for evil is because evil is in the world and God is Creator so they attribute Him with the source of evil. Also as humans we always want to put the blame for our problems on someone other than ourselves. God tempts no one with evil, sinners nor believers. I don't think God allows people to sin, people chose to do that themselves. He allows the temptations or trials to come a person's way to test us to see if in using our free will whether we will sin or not. The trial or temptation is a way for God to strengthen us, believe and depend on Him more.

The main thing that trials have done for me in my life is to know that I have to go to someone other than myself to help me to endure the trial. They have made me realize that I cannot depend on myself or others but God. There have been times when I have not thought of God first and I would just be hanging on by myself unsuccessfully. I guess you could say that I let Satan have his way at times by griping and complaining and wishing that I did not have this particular trial. But when I turn to God is He gracious and just waiting on me to seek Him and gives me the endurance and peace of mind to get through the crisis. As I have stated I have changed in that I know where my Source of Help is and that I have gained SOME patience and endurance and learn not to ask God to remove a trial from my life but to help me to gain whatever it is that He is trying to bring about in my character while I wait on Him to bring the trial to whatever it is His will to do. It is not easy all the times to just wait, but I just have to keep going and reminding yourself to wait on the Lord. WHAT GOD IS DOING IN MY LIFE IS AN ONGOING PROCESS AND I LOOK FORWARD TO THE DAY WHEN THE LORD RETURNS AND THEN I CAN SAY THAT I HAVE FINALLY GOTTEN IT RIGHT.

For me this parable is telling me that Jesus is the Master Sower and we are the lesser sowers. He has given us a responsibility to get His Word to the WORLD to sow on EVERY KIND OF SURFACE, NOT JUST THE SURFACE WHERE YOU EXPECT GROWTH; and every Christian has this responsibility. Verse 9 of Matthew 13 says 'he who has ears to hear, let him hear. Some will listen and turn to God and some will not. According to the person there will be different degrees of success but we are not to be disillusioned or give up because the result will probably not be that overwhelming. Even though a farmer focuses on the good ground, we need to also continue to focus on the the stony places and the those among the thorns and even the ones who let it slip away from them without even noticing that Jesus has been preached to them in the first place. We do the sowing and Jesus does the harvesting. It teaches me also to examine myself to see which one of these areas I fall in and if I am in anyone except the good ground I need to seek Jesus and ask Him to help me to get to the good ground.

Q3. (Matthew 13:23) Even good soil can have factors that hinder growth in various parts of the field, or make some areas grow taller and fuller wheat. What factors make a disciple especially good soil for the growth of the word or message of the Kingdom? What might be the reasons for 30-fold, 60-fold, and 100-fold growth? To me when you receive and understand the Word you have been broken, you have truly repented and turn to God in trust and dependency. You receive the Holy Spirit and that is when you realize that God is changing you heart and your desires toward Him, you want to serve the Lord for His purpose. The growth production may be determined by the gift or responsibility that God has given to a person.

They all point to not having faith in Jesus,and they all to me are equally more dangerous. However, Worries and cares of this life could get so bad for a person that they may come to the conclusion that they need help from a Higher power, Jesus. They realize that they cannot depend on themselves. Pleasures can control a person so that they may become addicted to the pleasure and it would be hard for them to break away from it. But those same pleasures could cause problems for a person and they later realize that they need to give them up. Riches make a person believe in themselves highly. The depend on their money and possession and think they have need of nothing else. Jesus said it is impossible for a rich man to enter in to the Kingdom. In any case, but with God all things are possible.

The type that Jesus is describing here are the ones who do hear the Word and they make a surface commitment, one that is not from the heart. When they first receive it they are happy and enthusiastic about it; they are more or less making a decision with their emotions involved. But because they have not had the repentance that is required to make a person want to turn away from themselves and toward God, because they have not felt the pain of learning and realizing just how much of a sinner he really is, when troubles come his way of which he probably does not even suspect they would he has no root or strength to endure the trial, because they are depending on themselves. That is why they turn away, because they do not realize the seriousness of their salvation. What it involves being saved.

Repentance is central because for this purpose Jesus came to earth. He paid the penalty of our sins, but we are the ones who have to accept what He is offering us and the first step to that is to believe in Him and to repent to have a change of mind. It is so hard to say and determine that you will not sin again because we will. It is the way it will be for life and then you start to question whether not you have the Spirit of God because you keep falling down so much and having to repent again and again. Belief and repentance means we put our trust in God to conform us into the image of His Son. I have to say that I see water baptism as a physical confirmation of your life of committment to Jesus, an act of obedience to Him. Once a person is saved, believe in Jesus and committed himself to Christ as Savior and Lord, the Holy Spirit is given to a person. To me that is when a person receives the Spirit. Whether there is a second baptism as some say I do not disagree. Being filled with the Spirit changes a person's life, it changes our wants and our desires to the spiritual things. The more we submit to the promptings of the Spirit, the more our hearts and minds are filled with the Spirit. Jesus cannot reign in an unrepentant heart because that person has not committed himself to follow Jesus. You must confess and turn your thinking toward Jesus, that is what repentance is and if you have not done that Jesus will not be your Master. It is at this time that you sincerely believe and repent that God gives you the Holy Spirit which makes it so that Christ can reign in a person, when that person listens for and hears what the Spirit is saying and obeys.

The difference between John' s action and Jesus' action is John is baptizing with water and Jesus is baptizing with the Holy Spirit and with fire. John' work was to prepare people for the coming Messiah. He told people to repent and be baptized with water (outward show of the result of repentance) a symbol of cleansing. The difference is that Jesus baptized with the Holy Spirit and fire; the inward part of a person, the heart where the change would take place. The Holy Spirit does the cleaning, penetrating a person, give that person enlightenment of the spiritual things; give life and energy to a person.(John 10:10 ...I am come that they might have life,... John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life... To me being overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit would mean being filled with the Holy Spirit; God gives His Spirit to all who have faith in His Son Jesus at the point of salvation. The more you submit to the Holy Spirit the more you become full with the Spirit. Some say there is a second baptism of the Holy Spirit of which I need to do an in depth study of for myself. Yes I would love to be overwhelmed by the Spirit, to submit to it more and more. I am the one who could prevent this by not submitting to the promptings all the time. What would encourage it for me is to see the results of submitting to God more and more, the spiritual blessings that come from following Jesus.

First of all John told the Jewish people that they had to repent, to turn their lives around from their sins and to show that they had he told them that they should be baptized. And according to this lesson this type of baptism that John performed may have derived from "Jewish proselyte baptism, a ritual bath by which a Gentile convert to Judaism was cleansed from moral and religious impurity." And if so it meant that the Jew would be humiliated to be publicly treated the same as a non-Jew. But it takes humility to repent of ones' self. People from Jerusalem, Judea and Jordan came to John to be baptized. The Pharisees and Sadducees who were legalists and had various other beliefs did not welcome John because they believe that they did not have to repent, that obeying the Mosaic Law was enough for them to be deemed righteous.

When a person says they are a Christian but has not wholeheartedly repented they will not be walking according to the way that pleases God. And it is for the same reason why a person avoids repentance because they do not want to change their ways and turn around and follow after Jesus. They are happy and content in their sins. I don't think we can really know the percentage of Christians that are unrepentant because we cannot know a person's heart. Repentance is something inward between a person and God. But at the same time a truly repentant person will produce fruit of the Holy Spirit that can be seen by others.

They may have been experiencing persecution from worshiping the One, True God. Whereas there are countries that do not let Christians worship in peace these are facing beating, jail, death. In the lands that do allow free worship we face everyday struggles just living, in addition to the possibility of being ridiculed for our faith. And always remember we are facing whatever Satan throws our way. This passage tells us that we don't have anything to worry about. That there may be things that can cause us to suffer in this life but that in the next life with Christ we will have been conquerors, overcomers, more than conquerors!!

They may have been experiencing persecution from worshiping the One, True God. Whereas there are countries that do not let Christians worship in peace these are facing beating, jail, death. In the lands that do allow free worship we face everyday struggles just living, in addition to the possibility of being ridiculed for our faith. And always remember we are facing whatever Satan throws our way. This passage tells us that we don't have anything to worry about. That there may be things that can cause us to suffer in this life but that in the next life with Christ we will have been conquerors, overcomers, more than conquerors!!

It is a statement of security. It means that God will fight our battles for us when we turn them over to Him. He has all power so if He is on our side we have absolutely nothing to worry about. Isa 54:7 says No weapon formed against thee shall prosper. That means He can take care of all our enemies, the sinful flesh, the devil and the world. The evidence that God is for us is in verse 32. He gave His One and Only Son, gave Him up, to die for us and free us from sin. He did not hold Him back, John 3:16 God so loved the world that He have His only begotten son.... I makes me feel loved and humbled. That God would give His Son up for someone like me, who did this for me while I was still a sinner. As for hope this is the hope of the Christian. To live with God forever and it makes you want to do whatever pleases God. Graciously give us all things that God will share the inheritance that He will give to Jesus with us.