Read with Me
James 1:2-4 (HCSB)
Consider it a great joy, my brothers, whenever you experience various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. But endurance must do its complete work, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.
Listen with Me
The Church has rarely been without trials and suffering, as is to be expected whenever the light pushes back against the darkness. And this was very true in the days in which James wrote this letter.
The persecution the Church was experiencing in those days came from many places. Some of it came from fellow Jews who refused to receive Jesus as the Messiah, who resented the fact that gentiles were entering the Church and claiming the name of God’s covenant people, and that these Christians, whether Jew or gentile, had a peace and a power far beyond anything they themselves had ever experienced.
The persecution also came from pagans who felt that the moral standards of the Christians were shaming them and making them look bad by comparison. And their insistence that there was only one true God, and the miracles they could do that reinforced that point, said clearly that the gods they themselves worshipped and had devoted their lives to were not even real.
And finally, persecution came at times from the government, in this case the Roman Empire. For several decades the Romans saw the emperor as divine and viewed solid allegiance to him as the glue that held the disparate empire together. Those who refuse to acknowledge the emperor as lord and savior were seen as provocateurs, weakening the cohesiveness of the empire and threatening its future.
But James encourages his readers to not let go of their trust in Jesus when times were hard, when persecution came. In fact, he encourages them to rejoice in those times, because those times of persecution and suffering provide not only a great opportunity to be a witness (light is even more apparent and attractive when the surrounding darkness grows), but it also provides opportunity for spiritual growth and maturity.
Just like a bodybuilder whose muscles grow larger and stronger as the weight and resistance increases, so persecution and suffering provide resistance that can provide opportunity to develop persistence, long suffering, grit. And that perseverance in the face of hardships produces not only spiritual strength, but spiritual maturity as well.
But suffering only produces that greater maturity if we do not retreat from it. Only when it is actually grappled with can it do its work of shaping and polishing us, deepening faith, building inner power, and bringing with it the dependence on God and on the Holy Spirit that ultimately leads to maturity.
Pray with Me
Father, far too many of us today believe that if things are hard, it must mean that we are outside Your will, or that something has gone wrong with Your plan. We have been trained to believe that everything will flow smoothly when we are in the middle of Your will. That ignores the testimony of saints all through the ages and the clear testimony of Your word. We have in many ways become like hothouse flowers, that can only be strong under ideal conditions, and which fade away quickly if the real world is allowed to intrude. But, Lord, you have made us of much stronger stuff than that if we are willing to engage the real world as it is, and if we are willing to persevere against suffering, hardship, and even persecution. Help me to be faithful to You and to Your agenda today, persevering even if there is backlash from the darkness as it grows resentful of Your light that is in me. Amen.