Jimmy Downing | Session #3 | All right. James, chapter one. James is one of my favorite books in all of the scriptures. I love how practical it is. I told our folks back home, I said, "If James was from the United States, he'd be from the state of Missouri." James doesn't want to just hear about your faith. He wants to see it. "Show me your faith by your works." We'll start reading from verse 17, and we'll go to 25, but we'll really be focusing on verse 21 and the verses that follow.

Verse 17 says, "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth." I'm so glad that it was by His will because if it was by mine, it would have never happened. But He made me willing in the day of His power, as He did with you, my beloved brethren, born again by the incorruptible seed of the Word of God. "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." So, of His own will, He brought us forth by the word of truth that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures, new creations in Christ. Therefore, if any man be in Christ, if any woman be in Christ, if any boy or girl be in Christ, they are a new creation. Old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. They are new. They have a new nature. They have a new heart. They have new wants. They have a new love. And it's the Lord Jesus Christ.