Rich Kao

According to James, here are the top 12 weaknesses of Christians.

1. Lack of perseverance. (James 1:1-12). Jesus said "In this world you shall have tribulation, but I courage, I have overcome (Jn 16:33)."  One of the greatest needs is for Christians to be strong, learn perseverance and become hearty and robust.  This side of heaven, we will not escape difficulties and troubles, so we must learn to be enduring, not just for enduring sake, but realizing God is using our difficulties to perfect us and mold us into his Son's image.  Maturity is what God is after (Jas 1:5).

2. Blaming God for our temptations / difficulties (Jas 1:13-18).  Blame shifting is as old as Adam.  When  things go well, do we give all the glory to God?  Lotsa times we forget.  But when things go wrong, isn't it automatic, "Where are you God?  Why did you put me in this situation?" 

3. Talking too quickly, too soon, out of turn.  (Jas 1:19a).  The propensity to want to hear ourselves talk and not others is so innate, especially if we're being accused of something unfair.   Like the countdown rule says, count to ten before you say anything.  Or as Stephen Covey says, seek to understand before you speak.

4. Getting angry. (Jas 1:19b-21).  Unfortunately, Cain is in all of us (Gen.4:4-6).  When sin entered, our life reversed and starting revolving around us and not God.  Now we have anger to contend with because of our self-centered life.

5. Listening, but not doing. (Jas. 1:22-27).  Ahhh, so easy to take it all in.  Enjoy the preacher.  Read a great book.  Grow in knowledge.  But how about growing in doing.  Activation is never easy.   So much inertia...time, money, schedule, and, oh the flesh.  Further expanded in Jas. 2:14-26.  James is perfectly clear: doing / works is an outflow of faith.  If there is no outflow, is there faith?

6. Showing partiality / hidden favoritism / racism. (Jas 2:1-13).  It's never easy to conquer our bias, particularly how James develops this point - bias based on looks.  Favoring people easy on the eye is a well documented, well researched phenomenom.  James' expansion on this point also hits on cultivating relationships based on calculations of what we might get from the relationship, in particular from wealthy people.  Beware!  

7.  Unable to properly control our tongue. (Jas. 3:1-12).  Expands on pt. 3.  Not only do we sometimes talk before listening, we may also engage in wrongful speaking, cursing, slandering, gossip, spewing negativity.  Also Jas 4:11-12.  Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks (Mt. 12:34).  So the root of this problem is a heart problem.

8. Living by own wisdom / man's wisdom, not God's.  (Jas 3:13-18).  It takes discipline to seek God's heart, mind and will.  It's easy to just move out of our own instincts.  But Jeremiah says our heart is wicked and deceitful (Jer. 17:9).  Hence it's necessary to put our motives under the light of God's word and spirit so we can move by His guidance, not our own.  See Jas 4:13-17 as an example of living in our own strength.

9. Quarreling & arguing. (Jas 4:1-10).  Another sancfication issue.  Are we just fending and looking out for ourselves, or are we preferring others (Phil. 2:3-4)?  The former leads to fights, strife, divorces and wars.  The latter leads to peace, harmony and unity.

10. Greediness. (Jas. 5:1-6).  Funny how we can spend so generously on ourselves, but when it comes to others, it comes to a screeching halt.   Squeezing money wherever we can to help our bottom line.  Paying workers less or late.   Cheating on our taxes.    Cooking the books.   Too much debt.   And on it goes.

11. Impatience. (Jas 5:7-11).  In our microwave, have-it-now, customer-is-king age, embracing patience is tough. We're not used to process, time, incubation, rumination.  We want it now.  Sorry, the kingdom won't bend to us.  God's ways for transforming us and orchestrating things is still the same...never take the cake out until it's ready.

12.  False promises & committments. (Jas 5:12).   We sure mean well, but pronoucing we'll do this and that is better served by just doing it and letting it prove itself.  Underpromise, overdelivery.

I know this may seem like a depressing way of looking at the Book of James, seeing it through a lens of our weaknesses,  but it does get at a diagnosis we need.  Before we can cure the disease, we need the doctor's assessent.  Then it's onto the cure.  These 12 points are meant to spurn us on in our personal walks, or provide a seed outline for preachers.  It could be a series.   The part that will bear great fruit is going back over each weakness and coming up with the solution based from scripture.  Part 2 could be Top 12 Solutions for Christians!