Bible League: Living His Word But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.— James 1:4 NKJV James begins his letter speaking to the church about the matter of trials and temptations Christians will face. He says to count it all joy knowing the testing of your faith produces patience. Other translations use the word endurance for patience. Patience and endurance are the result of faith manifested in the believer's everyday life. Trials and temptations are the mandatory lessons that develop maturity in one's faith. Someone once described perfecting patience and endurance in the Christian life like waiting for a bus at an open-air bus stop in the middle of a torrential hailstorm. I don't like trials and temptations, and I find it difficult to count them as joy, but God allows them to strengthen us in our time on earth to make us more like Jesus. They prepare us for heaven by giving us an assurance of God's goodness and an expectance of living in future glory. The perfecting work of patience and endurance is amazingly proclaimed in the testimony of Noah and his family. Prior to the flood, the Bible says Noah was a man of great faith with a real relationship with God. Noah was pleasing to God as Noah had done all that the Lord had commanded him to do. So one day God told Noah to build a boat the size of a football field, because God planned to send a massive flood 100 years later. Can you imagine the trials and temptations Noah and his family endured all those years? Mocked and laughed at, no doubt. Perhaps donkey and cart tours were showing up at the site to get a look at the family "crazy." But through all the pain and suffering, the building challenges, the family doubts, the temptations to call it a day and go back to the wages of the world, Noah and his family endured with patience and were saved. When Jesus comes again, I too want to be found in the Ark of God's grace. I want my heart to be found ready and waiting, having patiently endured the fiery trials and tribulations, the temptations, and sufferings of life. At the end of his letter, James condemns the ways of the world and exhorts believers to be patient until the Lord's coming like the farmer waiting for the fruits of the early and later rains (James 5:7-8). The righteous will always have to be patient and endure; but in time (and I believe sooner than later), Jesus will come and right all wrongs. Like the cat on the poster, "Hang in there, baby." Hang in there, beloved of God; learn the virtues and blessings of patience and endurance. By Pastor David Massie, Bible League International staff, California USA Bible in a Year Old Testament ReadingPsalm 44, 45, 46 Psalm 44 -- We have heard with our ears, God; our fathers have told us NIV NLT ESV NAS GWT KJV ASV ERV DRB Psalm 45 -- My heart overflows with a noble theme NIV NLT ESV NAS GWT KJV ASV ERV DRB Psalm 46 -- God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. NIV NLT ESV NAS GWT KJV ASV ERV DRB New Testament Reading Acts 25 Acts 25 -- The Trial Before Festus, King Agrippa NIV NLT ESV NAS GWT KJV ASV ERV DRB Reading Plan Courtesy of Christian Classics Etherial Library. Tyndale Life Application Daily Devotion “If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? Won't he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go to search for the one that is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders.”Insight We may be able to understand a God who would forgive sinners who come to him for mercy. But a God who tenderly searches for sinners and then joyfully forgives them must possess an extraordinary love! This is the kind of love that prompted Jesus to come to earth to search for lost people and save them. This is the kind of extraordinary love that God has for you. Challenge If you feel far from God, don't despair. He is seaching for you. Morning and Evening by Spurgeon Genesis 39:12 He left his garment in her hand, and fled, and got him out.In contending with certain sins there remains no mode of victory but by flight. The ancient naturalists wrote much of basilisks, whose eyes fascinated their victims and rendered them easy victims; so the mere gaze of wickedness puts us in solemn danger. He who would be safe from acts of evil must haste away from occasions of it. A covenant must be made with our eyes not even to look upon the cause of temptation, for such sins only need a spark to begin with, and a blaze follows in an instant. Who would wantonly enter the leper's prison and sleep amid its horrible corruption? He only who desires to be leprous himself would thus court contagion. If the mariner knew how to avoid a storm, he would do anything rather than run the risk of weathering it. Cautious pilots have no desire to try how near the quicksand they can sail, or how often they may touch a rock without springing a leak; their aim is to keep as nearly as possible in the midst of a safe channel. This day I may be exposed to great peril, let me have the serpent's wisdom to keep out of it and avoid it. The wings of a dove may be of more use to me today than the jaws of a lion. It is true I may be an apparent loser by declining evil company, but I had better leave my cloak than lose my character; it is not needful that I should be rich, but it is imperative upon me to be pure. No ties of friendship, no chains of beauty, no flashings of talent, no shafts of ridicule must turn me from the wise resolve to flee from sin. The devil I am to resist and he will flee from me, but the lusts of the flesh, I must flee, or they will surely overcome me. O God of holiness preserve thy Josephs, that Madam Bubble bewitch them not with her vile suggestions. May the horrible trinity of the world, the flesh, and the devil, never overcome us! Daily Light on the Daily Path 1 John 3:14 We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death.John 5:24 "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. 1 John 5:12 He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life. 2 Corinthians 1:21,22 Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God, • who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge. 1 John 3:19,21 We will know by this that we are of the truth, and will assure our heart before Him • Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; 1 John 5:19 We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. Ephesians 2:1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, Ephesians 2:5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), Colossians 1:13 For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, New American Standard Bible Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, Calif. All rights reserved. For Permission to Quote Information visit http://www.lockman.org. |
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