Faith That Works: Trials and Joys

Wally Fry at the blog Truth in Palmyra is working his way through the book of James. At our request, he strung several posts together to make what you see below. You can click on the title link below to read the summary, or click through and then click the blog’s header and bookmark the site generally, stopping back to read the updates as they appear. The book of James is a rich resource which I find never fails to deliver at different seasons of life.

Faith That Works-Trials and Joy-James 1:1-4

James 1:1-4

James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting. My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

---

Read James Chapter 1 here

Count It All Joy

Starting today, we are going to spend a little time in the Book of James. It’s such a great one. The Book of James is where the rubber meets the road, so to speak. It’s as close to a handbook for Christian living as a person can get really.

In Verse 1, James had made reference to the “12 tribes which are scattered abroad.” Due to persecution, Jews from Jerusalem  had been scattered abroad were were still suffering hardship and trials. In most cases, they were suffering because of their faith. James was writing to them to offer guidance on handling these trials and also to provide them with some guidelines to help them determine the authenticity of their faith.

So, right from the beginning, James jumps right to explain the inevitability of trials and the purposes for them. That’s where we will start also.

“Count” it all joy. Simply put, this is to consider, think about or look upon our temptations, or trials, in a particular way. James is telling us to look at them a particular way because our human nature would not be to look at them that way.

What is that way? With joy. All joy. James is not referring to a gritting your teeth and endure it with a smile joy here; he is talking about the kind of joy we can consider trials with if we truly understand the God has a purpose for them in our lives.

James tells us to count it all joy “when” we fall into temptations, or trials. The word temptation here is synonymous with trial; it’s not referring to temptation to sin here. James is warning us that trials will come, even for and perhaps particularly for, believers.

Divers temptations. Diverse trials, various and sundry trials, trials of many different sorts. My trials will not be your trials. We will all face our own.

James has laid the ground work here in terms of the fact that Christians can expect difficulties and trials. We are, however, to approach and deal with them the way God wants us to, with joy. Perhaps if we understand some of the purposes God has for trials in our lives, we would be better able to consider them with all joy.

Why Be Joyful?

We already know that James was inspired by the Holy Spirit to instruct us to react to our trials with joy. We are to be glad we are being tempted, or tried, rather than sad or upset over them. Why?

The simple answer is that we need to consider trials not from our standpoint, but from God’s standpoint. Of course, that is usually where we fail in most areas, when we fail to consider things from God’s viewpoint.

The trying of our faith “worketh patience.” We have all heard the old saying about being careful about praying for God to give us patience I am sure. Why is that? Because He won’t just give it to us; He will teach it to us.

“Let patience have her perfect work.” In other words, go with the flow so to speak. We need not fight, resist or rebel against the trial in our lives. Remember counting it all joy?

Now we come to the why part of things. We are given trials, in some cases, so that we may become “perfect and entire, wanting nothing.” Does this mean that we will become the picture of sinless perfection or be given all of the things we want. Well, I am afraid not.

That simply means that our trials will cause us to become mature in our Christian lives. To be perfect and entire here means simply we will become more grown up Christians, more suited to the work God wants us to do.

Why Trials?

As we discussed earlier, we probably want to be careful about asking God to grant us patience. He is not going to deliver patience to us on a silver platter; He is going to teach it to us. How will He teach it to us? With trials, of course.

What then might be some specific reasons God may place trials in our paths? How can they help us develop patience and grow in Christian Maturity?

Trials test our faith. It’s easy to be thankful and grateful to God when things are going our way; it is a test of our true belief and trust in God if we remain thankful and grateful when things are not going our way.

Trials may humble us. We all know God considers meekness and humility to be virtues; yet sometimes we can become so assured and confident concerning our successes that we lose these traits. That is even true, maybe especially true, for how we react towards our successes doing God’s work in His church. God may knock us down a rung or two to humble us.

God may place trials in our lives to tear us away from things of the world and love for the world. I know a man who, when a friend of his would go fishing instead of going to church, would pray that he had a bad day fishing. If there is something we allow to stand in the way of what God wants us to be doing, He might just take it from us.

God may place trials in our way to teach us how to be able to provide solace and comfort to other believers. It’s much easier to feel kindness and empathy towards the trials of others if you have experienced trials of your own. It’s easier to comfort another’s affliction if you have suffered the same affliction.

There are many reasons we may be tested and tried by God. Of course, the ones above are not all inclusive. In fact, we may never know why a particular trial has been place into our lives. God can reveal it to us, or He cannot; sometimes He will and sometimes He won’t.

What matters is we understand that, if a trial is placed in our path, that God is in charge and has some goal in mind. Not only will he have some goal in His mind, but it will be the best one.

Building Spiritual Muscles: Wait Training

Today is the first of two “borrowings” we’re going to do from Steven C. Mills at the blog Steve’s Bible Meditations. We have a rule here of not going to the same source more than once every six months, but because we’re going to run both parts of this, today and tomorrow I am going to ask you really strongly today to click the title to read this at Steve’s blog and send him some ‘stats love.’ Then take a few minutes to look around the rest of the blog.

Wait Training – Isaiah 40:31

“But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint” (Isaiah 40:31, KJV).

When I was younger, we often sang this verse at prayer meetings or Bible studies as a song. Then, at the end of the verse we added this refrain to the song: “Teach me Lord, teach me Lord, to wait.”

The Hebrew word that is translated “they that wait upon” in the KJV finds its root in another Hebrew word that means to wait or look for, to hope for or expect. The sense of the waiting in this verse is eager expectation or anticipation. So, the NIV translates it as “those who hope” and the HCSB translates it as “those who trust.”

Unfortunately, when we talk about “waiting upon the Lord,” it’s not necessarily waiting with hopeful anticipation, but more like waiting with dreaded apprehension! For us, waiting upon the Lord is exceedingly distressful and practically unbearable. Instead of eagerly waiting upon the Lord, we impatiently wait upon the Lord.

But “waiting upon the Lord” is a discipline that is actually related to “trusting in the Lord” or “hoping in the Lord.” In fact, I would argue that “waiting upon the Lord” is the same thing as “having faith in God” or trusting or hoping in God.

Here’s what I mean. Hebrews 11:1 defines faith as: “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (KJV). Faith is substantively comprised of hoping for outcomes that haven’t yet occurred. So, to me, “having faith” is a lot like “hoping for,” which is technically the same as “waiting upon.”

To hope for some outcome and hope that God is going to do it, we have to wait for God for it; we have to wait for God to work according to His will! Paul explained in Romans 8:25: “But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it” (KJV).

But this verse has a lot more to teach us about waiting on the Lord than just informing us that we should do it. This powerful verse tells us why we should wait upon the Lord. It explains the spiritual value and benefits of waiting upon the Lord. When we wait upon the Lord, our faith is strengthened because it develops God’s perspective in us so that our faith can sustain us spiritually both in the short-term and the long-term! It’s Wait Training!

To see what I mean, let’s unpack Isaiah’s metaphors in this verse.

“Waiting upon the Lord” causes us to rise above our present circumstances to get a higher view, a more objective view, a God-view of them (“soar with wings like eagles”). From that vantage point, you can gain perspective about what it is that you hoping and trusting God to do and then develop a better understanding of God’s plans and purposes for you. And when you better perceive what His will is, then you will have the resolve and the willpower to accomplish His will in your present circumstances unhesitantly and without wavering (“run and not grow weary”). And, this willingness to do God’s will that you develop in your present circumstances will lead you into a lifestyle of continually and confidently hoping and trusting in God for all that you do and ask Him for in your life (“walk and not faint”).

And the end result of this waiting is that your faith is strengthened, it’s renewed. It becomes faith with precision and fidelity, faith aligned with God’s will. It becomes front-end faith instead of should-have-been faith. It becomes proactive rather than reactive faith. After all, wouldn’t you rather be having faith for what you know God wants to do instead of hoping what you want to do is what God wants?

When you’re waiting upon the Lord for what you know He wants to do, then you wait with eagerness, expectancy, anticipation.

So, teach me, Lord, teach me, Lord, to wait!

But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:13, NASB)

Lying to Ourselves

In the process of verifying one of the E. Stanley Jones quotes that appeared here yesterday, I came across a Tumblr blog by sabrinacate, but I couldn’t actually locate the proper link for attribution. (If anyone can locate this exact article, I’ll add the link.)  This post was too good not to include here…

Lies We Tell Ourselves About God

Why lie to ourselves.

—God does not know or see what I’m doing:

• Psalm 73:11 “They say, ‘How does God know? And is there knowledge with the Most High?’”
• God always knows. Why do we tell ourselves He doesn’t. Even if we may not tell ourselves that, we act like we believe that sometimes.

—God sees things the way I do:

• I Samuel 16:7 “But the LORD said to Samuel, ‘Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.’”
• Just because we like something or do something does not mean that God approves of it.

—God is appeased by my giving

• I Samuel 15 “Saul was commanded by God to destroy the Amalekites and to leave nothing left. Saul disobeyed God. He spared Agag and the best of the sheep, oxen, fatlings, lambs, and all that was good.”
• It’s not ok to not do things the way God says. We need to live in a way that honors Him during the week, not just when we are at church.
• He doesn’t need you singing praises to Him, if you wont live by Him!

—God doesn’t believe in me

• Job 4:18 “He puts not trust even in His servants’ And against His angels He charges error”
• God believed in Job’s faith. He can certainly believe in ours as well. God does everything with us in mind. He believes we can choose holiness.
• Having a place prepared in Heaven, already for us, shows how much God believes in us. He wants us and believes that we can be righteous.

Our Common Lies

—God only helps those who help themselves

• 8 out of 10 people believe this is found in the Bible.
• We value work, as humans, and we assume that God thinks like us, which He doesn’t.
• If this statement were so, we would not be Christians. It says we are helpless and hopeless in the Bible.
• Paul said there is not one who is righteous.
• God makes up the whole gap with Jesus’ sacrifice.
• Everyday our attitude should be “Thank you, Lord, for your gift.”
• Luke 18 “The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector”
• God helps those who know they need help, like the tax collector in the parable.

—God’s love much be earned

• This idea is not from God.
• Galatians 3
• There’s nothing you can do to get God to love you more or less. It also never says in the Bible why God chose to love the Israelites or the apostles or us. So why would we think there had to be something they did to deserve it?

—God understands that’s just the way I am. After all, He made me this way.

• “Oh, I know I shouldn’t do that, but …”
• God did not make you to sin!!
• God understands that’s just they way I am, but that’s why He sent His son Jesus! SO THAT WE CAN CHANGE!
• This is just our way of making excuses and justifying the things we do.

We create distortions of reality when we lie to ourselves.

• If we tell ourself that someone hates us, we’ll relate that way to them.
• If we do this with God, that always brings pain and suffering.

“When we say we begin with God, we begin with our idea of God, and our idea of God is not God. Instead, we ought to begin with God’s idea of God, and God’s idea of God is Christ” -E. Stanley Jones