James Part 2

But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing."                                                                       James 1:4  NKJV 

The aim of testing us, is for us to reach maturity. It is a method God uses to purge us of all impurity. We need to cooperate with God however, so that He can build our character. To resist Him is counter-productive because, He will have His way in the end and, we will still have to go through all of this. To submit means He can complete His work in us. His aim is to make us mature and complete.

We may feel this is not easy at the time of testing. We may go through the most dreadful of times and it would be so easy to say, 'Enough, I've had all I can take of this'. You may then walk away. The thing is, once you have tasted how good Jesus is (Psalm 34:8), you can't resist Him for long. You may walk away but, sooner or later you'll return because of the effect He has on you and, the way you realise that life without Him in it, is no life at all. See Luke 15 and The Prodigal Son.

No testing is comfortable to live through but, as we stand fast under the pressure of the situation, it may be possible to turn these adversities into opportunities that will change the situation.

Think about this for a moment. We can feel that trials are abysmal but really, they are there to mould us into shape. As we look at it this way, we can take the negativity of it all and turn it into a positive. To do this, we need to nurture our faith and fix our eyes on Jesus:

'Let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us and, let us run with endurance the race that is set before us 2 looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame and, has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God'. 

                                                                                   Hebrews 12:1-2

Jesus completed this and, He will help us to complete our trials too. He will help us change adversity into opportunity as, we seek His help - without complaining.

It is not a one-off either, trials will continue to come but, after a time we begin to realise that, with Jesus we can endure this and have the victory.

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