Monday, February
13, 2017
Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an
opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your
faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So
let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect
and complete, needing nothing. James
1:2-4(NLT)
James, the half-brother of
Jesus was revered in the early church for being a great man of prayer. According to some sources they even called
him camel knees because
of the extremely baggy callouses on his knees from spending so much time
kneeling on the floor. And yet when I
read about troubles being a big-time opportunity for great joy, there is an uncontrollable eye-roll that wells-up
within.
And then we read the rest of
his statement and it begins to make sense.
The testing of our faith is something of which God approves. This is not to be confused with
tempting. James later says (verse
13) that God never uses temptation on us; that comes from a different
direction – namely the world, the flesh or the devil. But testing – ah, that’s from God, proof that
you are a loved child the Father is developing.
And what development that is!
The Development of a Saint
Saints are literally those
whom God has made spiritually-strong through testing and setting-apart from the
sinfulness failure syndrome. It’s a process
of growing spiritually mature. James
tells us that when our endurance, matured through testing is fully-developed, that
spiritual growth will have brought completeness to what God desired in your
life, nothing less! And that’s enough!
In a recent conversation
with my bride we were talking about difficult times in the past and how we wish
we could go back and make it better. The
thought came that, of all the mistakes and missteps, there is nothing in my
life that has ever happened from which God has not somehow brought positive
results.
That
doesn’t mean testing is easy; never said that!
In fact there seems to be a definite correlation between the duration,
depth and location of the testing and the meaningfulness of spiritual growth
produced.
A Case in
Point
The
last thing in the world I wanted was another dog.
Now,
he’s still a lot of work, but that has become part of the family routine, and
we deal with it. The positive spiritual
maturity that has evolved in all of this, particularly for me, has been the
willingness to be compassionate, instead of just feeling
compassion. There is quite a difference
between feeling an ache in your viscera over someone’s troubles, and getting
hands-on to do something about it.
And
that is definitely a kingdom of God reality.
He could have stayed very comfortably on his throne in heaven; instead
he chose the cross.
For You Today
Have
some troubles been working on you?
That’s the Father crafting another saint!
NOTES
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