No one that I’m aware of has ever accused James of ‘sugar-coating’ his letter. We believers are admonished to ‘speak the truth in love’, but that does not mean truth won’t ‘hurt’ at times, when we hear it. And James delivers some ‘truth bombs’ that should make us all squirm, if not duck for cover.

He opens up his letter reminding us that encountering various trials and tests was not a matter of ‘if’, but ‘when’ they occur. (James 1:2-4). And the purpose of these encounters is so “patience will have its perfect work in us so that we may be ‘perfect and complete’.”(Matt. 5:48 ring a bell?) . Oh, ‘news-flash’ here: this ‘perfecting’ process does not automatically happen on Day 1 after we ‘accept Christ as savior’.

The primary benefit of these ‘tests’ is to expose what is in our hearts so when that ‘old man’ surfaces, we can identify, confess, and then repent of it, once and for all as we ‘put it to death’. That is what children of God do who are ‘led by the Spirit’. (Rom. 8:13-14; Gal. 5:24). And just to clarify...that ‘old man’ consists of numerous fleshly attributes that God will ‘remove from the land’ one at a time, just like the Israelites were to do when they entered Canaanland. It may be a spirit of impatience, or greed, or anger, or envy or unforgiveness, lust, etc. But they ALL must come ‘off the land’, as in out of our hearts. (Mark. 7:21-23). To continue allowing them to remain poses a problem if you have hopes of ‘inheriting the kingdom of God’. (Gal. 5:19-21; Matt. 7:23; Eph. 5:5-6; 1 Cor. 6:9-11)

In chapter 3, James calls out those whose tongues betray them and reveal a major flaw in their walk. How is it that we can ‘bless our God and Father’ in one breath, and then turn around and ‘curse men’ (speak evil of) in the next? (9). He call us out in our sin saying that from the same mouth (and heart)proceed blessing and cursing’...and then plainly reminds us: “My brethren, these things ought not to be so!” (10). He then cites some great examples from nature to support what he is rebuking us for- ‘can a fig tree bear olives or a grapevine yield figs? No spring yields both salt and freshwater’. (12)

Friends...this should not be news to us. Jesus Himself, addressed this topic of fruit-bearing trees. He said “either make the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for a tree is known by its fruit.” (Matt. 12:33) And He was only reinforcing His claims found in Matt. 7, making it clear that “every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.” (17-18). You might read vs. 19 in case you forgot what happens to trees that are not bearing this ‘good fruit’ He speaks of.

Now people might want to attempt to justify or excuse or explain away why all that ‘bad fruit’ continues to come out of their heart/mouth, perhaps even try to divert by listing all those ‘wonderful works they have done in God’s name’, (Matt. 7:22) .... but if that bad fruit is still manifesting in one's life, then it needs to be dealt with, because it is ‘sin’. And those folks in Matt. 7:23 were turned away because they continued to break God’s law, which is what ‘sin’ is. (1 John 3:4)

James called out those early believers, even accusing them of being ‘adulterers’ (4:4) before admonishing them to humble themselves before God and repent. (6-10). Today, in many of our churches, we do just the opposite as we coddle and comfort and pacify those who refuse to repent of their carnality and ongoing sins. We make lame excuses reminding them they are still ‘wretched sinners’ yet ‘loved and accepted by God...just the way they are’. Once again, to quote James: “Brethren...these things ought not to be so.”