Dear Friends,
Here it is August already. Hard to believe this year is almost over. Maybe it is that we still have one quarter left. However, you may look at it, the fact remains that time can cause us to become anxious and fretful. Time may seem to be slipping away, and we wonder if we will ever get anything done that needs to be done.
When James wrote his epistle, he had written to the twelve tribes, the Jews. He told them to consider it all joy when they encountered various tests, temptations, and trials, knowing that the trying of their faith would produce endurance, and endurance would have its perfect work making them perfect and complete lacking nothing. (James 1:2-4)
The word consider, is an old word that is an accounting term. It means to add it up and determine the total. Add up your tests, trials, temptations and determine the total of it all to be joy!! He doesn’t say to be joyful about them or even to feel joy about the testing, but rather to determine that they equal joy.
He goes on to say, knowing this. Know this now, know it later and never forget it!! When your faith comes under fire, when your faith is tested by the enemy, when trials and temptations come against your faith, know this; it will produce endurance.
Whenever we face the trials of life, they will move us in one of two directions. Either away from the Word of God, or towards the Word of God. At this point we must make a choice which way we will move. If we choose to move towards the Word, then the trials of life will produce endurance in our life and character.
The Word endurance is not a “grin and bear it” attitude. Endurance means to stay under. The quality of endurance is the ability to stay under the promise and not fall to the pressure. Even if we have times of weakness, we can get up with the help of the Holy Spirit and get right back under the promise through endurance and be free from the pressures of life.
Sometimes we think this takes too much time and we get out of enduring and try to create the answers ourselves. This is the normal way of yielding to the pressures. It moves us from God sufficiency to self-sufficiency.
We start looking at how long it is taking, how much time has passed, how little time is left before something has to happen. But the scripture goes on to say, endurance will have its perfect work. Endurance does the work!!! When we step out of endurance then the working has stopped. Endurance makes us perfect, mature. It also makes us complete. This means that every grace that is present in Christ is present in the enduring believer. Wow!! What a promise!!!!
When we come to the book of Hebrews, we find the writer telling his readers not to throw away their confidence which has a great reward. He tells them they have need of endurance so they may receive what was promised. (Hebrews 10:35-36). This is written to the Hebrews. The same group of people that James wrote to. The book of Hebrews was written about 35 years after the book of James. After 35 years this same group of people are hearing the same thing; You have need of Endurance!!!!! Surely they are thinking, after all this time, “I think I’ve done about enough of this endurance, I’m ready for something different!! Does anybody have anything new to tell us?”
If they were thinking this, they would have forgotten what James told them. Know this now, know it later, and never, ever forget it. 1) Count it joy. 2) Produce endurance 3) Endurance works 4) Endurance make us mature and complete in the grace of Christ.
Don’t let time be your enemy. God didn’t create time to frustrate us. Use time to your advantage. It is the realm in which endurance works. It is the place in which endurance creates. It is where the answer is waiting to meet you. Let endurance introduce you to your answer.
Pastor Bob
