The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops. (James 5:16-18)

My friend Josephina was so excited to tell me that she had finally landed a job packing boxes in a warehouse.

“Congratulations!” I said. “How’s the job going?”

“Well,” she said, “they are only paying us minimum wage and my boss is constantly screaming at me and my co-workers. But I feel like I get paid $50 an hour.”

“What!? Why?” I asked incredulously.

“Because every day I get to pray for my co-workers who are in that brutal environment.”

Josephina is excited about a tough, low-paying job because she understands the privilege and power of prayer—a theme James focuses on at the conclusion of his letter. 

James says, “The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.” He then ...

If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them. (James 4:17)

If you were to ask me to confess the last three sins I can remember, they would all be sins of commission—things I’ve done that fall short of God's commands. None would be sins of omission—good things I felt the Lord prompting me to do that I failed to act upon. But in today’s passage, James is directing my (and your) attention to the latter.

“Oh, how many lives are wasted by people who believe that the Christian life means simply avoiding badness and providing for the family,” says pastor John Piper. “So there is no adultery, no stealing, no killing—just lots of hard work during the day…and lots of fun stuff on the weekend—woven around church (mostly). This is life for millions of people. Wasted life. We were created for more.”

Because Jesus lived a life of far more! Jesus didn’t just avoid evil. He proactively did righteousness. And so, if we long to fully image him—if we long for ...

Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. (James 3:13-17)

If I had today’s passage in mind at the time, I likely would have avoided one of the dumbest mistakes I’ve made in the last few years.

I was in a conflict with a brother in Christ when he sent me a lengthy email that (I'm ashamed to admit) annoyed me. I was in the midst of a particularly busy week. And rather than stop and pray and ask God for wisdom, I hit the easy button and fed the email thread to AI ...

My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? (James 2:1-4)

I’ve made no secret that I am a superfan of The West Wing. But I may be an even bigger fan of how well the show’s star, Martin Sheen, lived out today’s passage.

In a terrific memoir of the show, the cast shared how Sheen would shake the hand of each background artist (or “extra”) and learn their names before filming. 

When “crew lunch” was first announced and those “extras” were sent to a separate area to eat, Sheen shut down this Hollywood habit, saying, “We’re all going to eat together.”

My f...

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. (James 1:17)

To kick off the new year, we are diving into one of the most practical books in the Bible: James. Over the next five weeks, I’ll focus on one section of each of the book's five chapters and apply it to the work God has called you and me to do in 2026.

Given that Christmas has just passed, I thought we'd start with James’s reminder that “every good and perfect gift” is not ultimately from Amazon or even your mother, but from God.

Of course, God is perfectly capable of giving good gifts miraculously (see manna from heaven as case-in-point). But all throughout Scripture, we see that God most frequently chooses to deliver his gifts through the work of human hands. 

For example, while God could have miraculously ended the famine in Egypt and Canaan, he chose to do that work through a government official named Joseph (see Genesis 41-45). W...