James from the Bible, Jesus’ half-brother, doesn’t care what you think.
That sounds harsh until you understand why. Dr. Tony Evans has spent years preaching through the book of James (Tony Evans’ Sermon: The Point of James), and he makes a point I can’t shake: James isn’t interested in your opinions. He’s interested in your obedience. He isn’t chasing your theories about faith. He’s chasing the fruit of it. He’d rather watch how you live for a week than listen to how you talk about God for an hour.
I believe him, and on Thursday, April 27, I decided to take another step forward, and a leap of faith, to stop talking about that conviction and start living it out loud.
That’s the day I launched Coach C’s Neighborhood, a daily five-minute video podcast where I open The Family Wins Devotional and read it with you, then send you back to your own devotional to finish the work yourself. No fanfare. No milestone speech. Just a coach, showing up every day, calling you into a habit that actually changes something. It’s an evolution of my Vision (Stretch Dream) to become known as the Mister Rogers for adults. As Mister Rogers was to children, Coach C is to adults. That is God’s Call for my life.
James Wasn’t Building a Fan Club
Here’s something Dr. Evans points out that struck me. James opens his letter as “a bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.” As Jesus’ half-brother, he grew up under the same roof. He had every right to open with that. He could have said, “Listen to me. I knew Him first.” Instead, he leads with surrender. Jesus wasn’t his brother to James anymore. Jesus was his Lord.
That’s the difference between a man performing his faith and a man living under it. James had watched his brother crucified and then risen. Nothing reorders a man’s priorities like the resurrection. Once Jesus is Lord and not just family, excuses stop working. You stop waiting on God to move because, as Dr. Evans puts it, the Holy Spirit is already moving beneath you, carrying you like a current if you’ll just start walking.
The Book of James is short. One hundred and eight verses. But a full half of them are commands. He wasn’t writing a devotional for people who wanted encouragement to feel better about staying still. He was writing to believers scattered by persecution, confused, wounded, and drifting, and he told them, plainly, to grow up.
Milquetoast Faith Doesn’t Survive Contact with James
Dr. Evans said something in his study of James that I want every MindWolves reader to sit with: too much of the modern church has become a playroom for people who never intend to leave it. James won’t let you stay there. He names the trial you’re avoiding, the sin you keep excusing, the anger you keep justifying, the tongue you keep loosing, and the pride you keep polishing, and he calls it what it is. Not because he hates you. Because he’s for you.
That’s the kind of coach I want to be for you. Please call me Coach C.
“Coach C” isn’t your friend in the sense that I’ll tell you what you want to hear. But I love you because you’re God’s creation, and I genuinely want your soul to prosper. I’ll show up on your screen every single day, not to entertain you, but to put you back in front of God’s Word, because a coach who only talks a good game and never runs the drills himself has no business coaching anyone. I read the devotional with you because I’m doing the work too. That makes me a player-coach, not a spectator.
And like Mister Rogers walking through that door in his cardigan, week after week, decade after decade, you can count on Coach C to be there. Same time. Same neighborhood. A constant in a world that won’t hold still.
Swift to Hear. Slow to Speak. Slow to Wrath.
If you want the one verse that sums up the whole letter of James, Dr. Evans points to James 1:19: “My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.”
Run to God’s Word first. Don’t drown it out with your own noise, and don’t let your anger set the agenda for your obedience. That’s the order. Hear first. Speak later. Stay slow to wrath the whole way through.
Coach C’s Neighborhood exists to make that order a daily habit instead of a Sunday sentiment.
Which Wolf Are You Feeding This Week?
You can keep feeding the wolf that talks about faith: the one that reads the verse, nods, gets distracted, and moves on. Or you can feed the wolf that actually walks it out: five minutes at a time, every single day, until it isn’t a discipline anymore. It’s just who you are.
James wasn’t asking for your applause. He was asking for your obedience. Coach C is asking for five minutes of your morning.
Subscribe to Coach C’s Neighborhood on my YouTube channel today, and let’s build that habit together, one daily reading, one open devotional, one step of obedience at a time. And if you don’t yet have your own copy of The Family Wins Devotional, request one as our gift at The Family Wins Devotional – MindWolves. Luke 6:38 promises that what we give away comes back to us pressed down and running over. We’re giving this one away on purpose.
It’s a beautiful day to be a neighbor.
Won’t you be a neighbor to someone today?
Feed the Good Wolf. 🐺