James 1:5-8 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; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does. (NIV)
I’ve been meditating on this passage off an on for the past few weeks. I realized I don’t ask God for wisdom nearly enough, especially for the small things–like how to get stains out of my daughter’s favorite dress 🙂
However, as Easter approaches, I’ve been thinking about what this passage shows us about God’s character and how that’s displayed in the Gospel. The God who gives generously to all…that’s who we serve. Not a stingy God. But a generous one. And we see just how generous in the Gospel. God died for us. He gave His Son for us. Not once we’d cleaned up our act, but while we were still sinners and enemies of God. I used to be an enemy of God. Some folks blissfully ignore Him (and pretend they aren’t enemies), but I fought Him. I hated Him. I wanted nothing to do with Him. And yet, He gave generously to me.
He gives generously to all. Whoever believes in His Name can be saved. There’s never a category of person who He won’t give to. You can be poor, rich, any ethnicity, any background. The only thing you can’t be is someone who won’t believe. That’s the kind of person who shouldn’t expect to get anything from God. Faith, the prerequisite of the Gospel. Abraham believed God even though he didn’t have a background in following God or hearing about God. He was called out of a pagan nation. And yet, he believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.
I love the consistency of Scripture. God is the same God from Genesis 1:1 to the end of Revelation. We see the Gospel writ large across the entire Bible. And here in James we see that He’s still the same–the God who gives generously to all who believe.
