Bipolar Disorder
The perfect gift is the opportunity to face a trial, that may sound like a far-fetched idea but follow my thinkinghere for a moment. We have already beentold in James 1:3-4, “Knowing this, that the trying of your faith workethpatience. But let patience have herperfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.” Here we learn that we are perfected bylearning patience and we learn patience by trials, so we can then draw theconclusion that trials are a perfecting gift or stated differently they are agift that perfects us. We have beenwrongly told to be fearful of trials and try to avoid them or get out of themas soon as you possibly can, but why would we fear what God has clearly told uswill make us perfect in Him? I am notbeing strange here, I realize that trials are hard and uncomfortable but don’tyou want to be perfect in Christ? Don’tyou want to bring Him glory? This canonly happen to a greater degree when you accept that trials are a way of perfectingyour faith, that makes them a gift.
The alternate to trusting in God and His Word is to trust in the world and our own thinking. While we might be able to maintain a façade of faith for a while when the temptations and trials of life come the truth will be revealed. One of the first evidences to whether our faith is genuine is our speech. For this reason, James spends so much time dealing with our words in chapter three. When we are talking out of both sides of our mouth, both good and bad, it is an indication that there is instability under the surface. You can try to hide it all you want, but what is in the heart will come out of the mouth; you cannot hide it forever. Your mouth reveals the iniquity of the heart.
Iniquity is not just sin in a general sense, it is really the attitude of your heart either positively toward wickedness or negatively toward righteousness. It is how you really feel on the inside about these things. Isaiah 59:2 says, “But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.” Notice that separation here is created by iniquity and then the sinful transgression that results is what hides God’s face from us. So often we deal with the transgression in confession, but we retain the sinful attitude that lead to it at the same time. I remember wondering for years why it was that I fell into the same sins over and over, and you may have the same question. The answer is quite simple. The reason that you fall into that sin is that you have created the right atmosphere for it to appear. The iniquity of your heart is what makes you vulnerable to the transgression. Dealing with the action alone is never going to remove the problem for long. An infection may manifest itself in many different ways, but if all you do is treat the symptoms, then you will become more ill. You must attack the source of the infection if you are to regain health. So often we deal with the symptomatic actions and fail to address the underlying iniquity, which is why we cannot remove the sin permanently.
You can put on the outward appearance of righteousness, but the iniquity of your heart will eventuallyshow through and most often will do so in your words. It says in James 3:6, “And the tongue is afire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileththe whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fireof hell.”
There are two distinct issues that are revealed in the tongue that are hidden in the heart according to James3:14-16.
“But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.”
