A-G, +James is saying that we should not use our faith to boast, judge others and be prideful.
James 2:10 simply reminds us that sin is sin. It doesn't matter if you sin a little or a lot. The soul that sins is the soul that dies unless it repents.
You need to get to the core, to the essence of things. Instead, you are preaching.
If an image appears on your television set showing Helen Thomas alongside Angelina Jolie and your eye turns to Angelina because she is beautiful to you – or away from Helen because she is not beautiful to you – then you are guilty of judging your fellow man under the Law and are therefore guilty of the entire Law – including idolatry, murder, theft, adultery and so on.
This was the big complaint in Ezekiel 33 – it doesn’t matter that you were faithful your whole life long to the very letter of the Law, the moment you think “Angelina is beautiful” – you are guilty of all of it.
It doesn’t even matter what you do v. what you think. (Matthew 5:27-28) The evil fruit comes from the heart of a man:
Do not ye yet understand, that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly, and is cast out into the draught? But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: These are [the things] which defile a man: but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man. – Matthew 15:17-20
We must be born again. (John 3) There is no other way! Apart from Him we can do nothing. (John 15).
Man is woefully ill-equipped to wrap his mind around God’s justice. Instead he hopes for a ‘god’ who keeps a balance sheet and that, in the end, his assets will be greater than his liabilities.
Worse, man anthropomorphizes God with his own sense of “equity.” We are not created equal - nor do we have equal challenges and opportunities. To whom much is given, much is expected. He is the Potter, we are the clay.
God’s justice is a very personal thing. His generosity to some of us - His mercy to some of us - His saving some of us - are His goodness alone.
But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things [but] loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them [but] dung, that I may win Christ, And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.
Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but [this] one thing [I do], forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing. – Philippians 3:3-16
Sigh … a lot of "good" (by mortal standards) people are in for a big disappointment.
Love God surpassingly above all else. Believe Him. Trust Him. Let go and let God.