Responsibility before God

James 4:13–5:6

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and get gain”; whereas you do not know about tomorrow. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and we shall do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. Whoever knows what is right to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure for the last days. Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. 

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GOD’S SCALES

“Without inner love, all external works are useless. On the other hand, what is done out of love is great and produces abundant fruit, however insignificant and contemptible it may seem in the eyes of men. For, in God’s scales, what motivates you to act weighs much more than the action itself” (cf. Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ).

This is a key phrase for the spiritual life! Certainly, some of us have felt the desire to do great works for the Lord, and perhaps we are saddened when, despite our sincere efforts, we manage to accomplish only small works—or practically none at all—from our perspective.

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