Sunday, March 22, 2026
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: James 5, 1 Peter 1
- Secondary Reading: Psalms 34
Devotional Thought
James closes his letter with a warning that lands like a thunderclap, and it is well that we hear it on the Lord’s Day, when our hands are empty and our hearts are meant to be open. He speaks to rich men who have hoarded wealth in the last days, whose gold and silver are cankered, whose garments are moth-eaten. He paints a scene no one enjoys: the cries of the laborers whose wages were kept back by fraud have reached “the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.” Then, almost without a breath, he turns to the afflicted and says, “Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord.” The farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, the prophets waited, Job waited. James is telling us that God’s people have always lived in the space between the promise and the harvest, and in that space the temptation is either to grasp at riches that rot or to grumble against a brother.
But then comes the tender turn that makes this passage livable. “Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms. Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church.” Here is the church’s ordinary medicine: prayer, song, anointing, confession, and the promise that “the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” Elias is held up as proof—a man “subject to like passions as we are,” who prayed that it might not rain, and it rained not for three years and six months. The same Lord who heard Elijah hears the cry of the sick room and the confession of the wandering heart. “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed.” Healing here is not merely of the body; it is the mending of a fellowship, the restoring of the one who has “erred from the truth.”
Then 1 Peter 1 opens the door onto a living hope. Peter writes to “strangers scattered” throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia—exiles who had been begotten again “unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” He does not pretend their road is easy. They are “in heaviness through manifold temptations,” tried as gold in the fire. But the trial of their faith is “much more precious than of gold that perisheth,” and it is leading somewhere: to praise, honor, and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. Here is the answer to James’s waiting farmer. The inheritance is incorruptible and undefiled, reserved in heaven, and we are “kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.” On this Sunday in Lent, with spring pushing up through cold ground, we are reminded that the seed must go into the earth before the harvest, and that the same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead is the Spirit who keeps us.
Reflection
- James says the cries of the defrauded laborers reached the ears of the Lord of sabaoth, and Peter says we are kept by the power of God through faith. Where in your own life are you tempted to hoard, grumble, or despair instead of praying, singing, and confessing?
- Peter calls the trials of the scattered exiles “the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth.” What present heaviness might God be refining in you, and how does the living hope of the resurrection change how you carry it?
Prayer
Lord God of sabaoth, who hears the cries of the poor and the prayers of the righteous, we come to You this Lord’s Day as strangers and pilgrims. Forgive us for hoarding what You have given and for grumbling against our brothers. Teach us to wait patiently for the precious fruit of the earth, and to pray with fervent, effectual prayer. We bless You at all times, for Your angel encamps around those who fear You, and You are nigh unto the brokenhearted. Keep us by Your power through faith, unto the salvation ready to be revealed in the last time, that our trial may be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Psalm Verse
Psalms 34:1 — “I will bless the LORD at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth.”