A new year is upon us which means we are frantically thinking about what we will resolve to do. In 2008, Sinclair Ferguson delivered a message at the Desiring God National Conference that included 20 God-honoring resolutions from the book of James. I commend them to you:
- To ask God for wisdom to speak and with a single mind (James 1:5)
- To boast only in exaltation in Christ, & humiliation in the world (James 1:9-10)
- To set a watch over my mouth (James 1:13)
- To be constantly quick to hear, slow to speak (James 1:19)
- To learn the gospel way of speaking to poor and the rich (James 2:1-4)
- To speak always in the consciousness of the final judgment (James 2:12)
- To never stand on anyone’s face with my words (James 2:16)
- To never claim as reality something I do not experience (James 3:14)
- To resist quarrelsome words in order to mortify a quarrelsome heart (James 4:1)
- To never speak evil of another (James 4:11)
- To never boast in what I will accomplish (James 4:13)
- To always speak as one subject to the providences of God (James 4:15)
- To never grumble, knowing that the Judge is at the door (James 5:9)
- To never allow anything but total integrity in my speech (James 5:12)
- To speak to God in prayer whenever I suffer (James 5:13)
- To sing praises to God whenever I am cheerful (James 5:14)
- To ask for the prayers of others when I am sick (James 5:14)
- To confess it freely whenever I have failed (James 5:15)
- To pray with and for one another when I am together with others (James 5:15)
- To speak words of restoration when I see another brother or sister wander (James 5:19)