Monday 27th June 2016 - Daily Reading:
James 1:1-18 - Faith Develops Perseverance
Over the next two days, I want us to focus our attention to this first part of James chapter 1. Today, I want to focus on verses 2-4 "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."
In these verses, James is making it clear to the reader that it is inevitable that they will go through trials in life. He says when, not if! It was inevitable for them, and it is for us too! The question is, how are we going to respond when the trials do come? James here makes it clear that when trials come, as difficult as the trials may seem, we should view them as times of great joy, rather than times of great discouragement. That will seem strange to us, because the reality is, when difficult times come, when the trials of life come, our human nature is to get discouraged. However, with the Spirit as our helper, we are able to view such times with great joy! And we can count the trials as joy, because James goes on to say that through these times, and through our faith in these times, perseverance is produced (or in some translations it says 'patience').
The Greek word that is used here, and translated as perseverance/patience is hypermone. The word is an active word, and so it doesn't portray someone just sitting around and patiently waiting for something to happen, but rather it describes someone as having an active endurance. As one person put it in regards to this translation
And so, when trials come our way and they are received with faith, it produces perseverance! However, patience isn't inevitably produced in times of trial. If these times of trials are received in unbelief and with grumbling, the likelihood is that it will produce discouragement in our lives, as well as a bitterness.
And so the question I want to finish with is simple: What are the trials you are going through today? And how are you receiving them? What is being produced?