“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” (James 1: 2-4 NIV)
I remember when I was a boy, my brothers and I would go to my grandmother’s house in Tennessee. We would meet with our cousins and romp through the woods that surrounded her big house on the mountaintop.
My grandmother would spend the better part of the day in the kitchen when her grandchildren came over. When we finished playing in the woods, it would be dinner time, and we would be treated to Granny’s wonderful cooking out on the large picnic table on her patio. I remember her mashed potatoes, and the gravy she would make from the chicken or roast beef scraps. I also remember the words that would frequently come out of our mouths once we had polished off our first helping of those mashed potatoes: “Pass the potatoes, please!” Her cooking was so good, everyone always wanted more!
This is usually how it goes with us, isn’t it? When we enjoy something, we naturally want more. Personally, I want more vacation and less work. I want more spending money, and less bills. I want sunnier days, and less rain. I want more health, and less sickness.
Do any of us feel that way about the problems that we face in life? I don’t! Not many of us have a burning desire to suffer! You won’t hear me begging: “Lord, pass me another heaping-helping of sickness, please!” “May I please have some more financial burdens?” If someone did talk this way, I would probably question their sanity.
I will be the first to admit that I do not enjoy being sick, or being in pain. I have had some experiences with physical pain in my life that I do not wish to repeat. In my opinion, a kidney stone attack, or a severe ear infection generally make for a bad day. “Pass the health, please!”
Personally, I prefer having more money in the bank, than I have bills to pay. I prefer assets to liabilities. I have never been what you would refer to as a mathematical genius. I took the required classes in high school, algebra, trigonometry, etc., and I did manage to pass them somehow. But if you were to ask me to explain any of that stuff to you now, you might as well be asking me to teach a class in Japanese. I never used any of it, so I did not retain it. However, I can add, subtract, multiply and divide with the best. One thing that I do understand is that when you have two thousand dollars of bills to pay, and one thousand dollars in the bank, the math doesn’t work very well. The only place where this kind of math works is in government, where a slight decrease in indebtedness can be called a surplus! “Pass the money, please!”
I prefer nice, open highways when I am traveling in the car, as opposed to traffic jams. I know you have been there. You are all set to go on a nice day trip to the beach, then suddenly you run into road construction, or an accident, and you find that half of the day you had planned on laying in the sun, is stuck sitting in hot traffic. It is even more fun when you have two kids in the back, asking every five minutes: “How much longer, Daddy?” “Pass the open highways, please!”
It is probably safe for me to assume that most of us are not going to have a burning desire to have more problems and trials. But then look at what James writes in his letter:
“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you face trials of many kinds…”(NIV). The King James version reads, “My brethren, count it all joy when you face divers temptations…”
Although I do like the NIV (New International Version), I find that the translation of this particular passage is a little weak. The word that is translated in the NIV as “trials”, and in the KJV as “temptations” is an interesting word. The Greek word is “peirasmos” which comes from “peirazo”, meaning “to try, test, either in a good sense, or a bad one, to tempt, test by solicitation to sin, entice, or allure.” According to my New Testament Lexical Aids, there are two words that are translated this way. The other word is “dokimazo” which generally means to test someone or something to prove its goodness or worthiness. This is the word that is translated “testing” (“the testing of your faith”) in verse 3. It has a positive connotation. “The difference between dokimazo and peirazo is that peirazo has the intention of proving that one has been evil, whereas the intent of dokimazo is to prove something good and acceptable.
When I started studying this, this whole passage from James seemed to be quite confusing, because it seemed to me that James had used the wrong word here. You don’t really catch this in the English, and the NIV translation confuses the matter even more. The Greek makes it much clearer. When you understand this within the entire context of the Gospel message, it makes perfect sense. God wants to test us, to prove to us, that we, in and of ourselves, are not up to the test. We fail miserably. The purpose of the test is not to bring us to despair, the purpose of the test is to bring us to the Cross. The purpose of the test is to make us see our need for grace. Grace is the core of the Gospel message. Grace has always been God’s paradigm of ultimate reality. Jesus Christ, is, and has always been the only source of God’s grace. This is true even in the Old Testament, because the Old Testament pointed to God’s soon to be revealed grace. If you read Paul’s letters in the New Testament, he also proves how this was the whole purpose of the Old Testament Law. His point is that no one can fully obey the Law. So, why did God give the Law? Why would He give us a set of Laws that we cannot keep? In order to show us that, we, in and of ourselves can never be good enough. This is a safeguard against religions pride. This shows us our utter dependence on God, and this is what we lost in the Fall. We lost our dependency in the effort to be independent, which does not work, because God is the source of life. We cannot establish our own righteousness apart from the very One who gave us life. We NEED grace, and grace is exactly what He provides in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus was appointed to be the Savior of the world, through His crucifixion, (His death at the hands of sinful humanity), His Resurrection, and His Glorification.
The simple fact is that God puts it on His terms. We do not get to decide how He does it. An easier way to understand this passage from James might go something like this: “Be filled with joy when you face enticement to sin, because these show you how weak and powerless you are when you attempt to stand against them in your own strength. You will fail the test. However, this can serve to refine your faith, to make your faith pure, when you trust in God’s provision, and rely on His strength, and quit trying to do things your own way. This whole process develops perseverance in you. You need this perseverance to stand through all life’s difficulties, and through it, God is making you mature and complete. Worthy to inherit eternal life.” (This is the DBV, Daniel Bryant Version.)
We rejoice in the tests, not because they are pleasant, but because they are preparing us for something far greater. We will rule with God through eternity, in His ultimate reality, because we have witnessed what a mess man makes out of things when he tries to leave God out of the picture and do things his own way.
There are many things we say and do, that, technically we would not define as bad, in our own way of interpreting things. The thing that makes them sin is that we try to do them our own way. We do not take God into account in the matter. Proverbs says, “There is a way that seems right to man, but in the end, it leads to death.”
Unless we have a well-grounded understanding of the nature and purpose of trials and temptations, and the difference between the two, the Bible, at times, can seem a little contradictory. For example, in this passage from James, the KJV plainly says that we should “count it all joy when we fall into all kinds of temptations.” However, in Luke 11:4, when Jesus is teaching the disciples how to pray, in what has traditionally been referred to as “the Lord’s prayer”, Jesus says we should pray, “and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” And James, in the same letter we have been looking at, later says, “Let no man say when he is tempted, ‘I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither temps He any man; but every man is tempted, when he is drawn away by his own lust, and enticed.”
What we must understand is that a temptation and a trial are not the same thing, although one may be the cause of, or lead to the other, but not necessarily. For example, if I were to get a debilitating illness, this would prove to be a real trial for me, however the illness itself is not a temptation, (an enticement to sin.) However, the illness could be an opportunity for the enemy to entice me into the sin of doubting God’s goodness and questioning His intent. Or I could be in a situation where I was strongly enticed to sin. This temptation, in and of itself, might serve no purpose in refining my faith or maturity if I did not deal with it in an appropriate manner. If I did deal with it appropriately, it could be used by the Spirit to refine my faith and character.
Our understanding of God must be grounded in what He reveals to us of Himself in His Word, and in His acts, not on how we think or feel at any given time. Sometimes when we are sick, or going through some other grand trial, it might seem like God is not near, or that He doesn’t care. But our feelings are not what determines truth. Truth is not subjective, it is objective. We have to have a firm grasp on this in order for our trials to serve the purpose of refining and growing us spiritually.
In regards to this whole matter of testing, or trials, my own problem is that I have too much of a fix-it mentality. I think this is true of most of us. We like for things in our lives to flow smoothly. We want things “easy peasy” as the saying goes. When something breaks, my first response is to try to figure out how to fix it. I want things to work the way they are supposed to work. I can’t stand for something in my house or car to be broken, and not work the way it is supposed to, even if it is something I don’t use. I want to fix it so it works, even if it is something that doesn’t really matter very much. I want it to serve its intended purpose. (Youtube how to videos have saved me a ton of money!)
This approach works well with mechanical things like cars and dishwashers. If my car is leaking oil, I conclude that there is a logical reason for it, and as soon as I can figure out where the oil leak is coming from, with the right parts, and tools, it can be fixed. The car is not inherently bad or evil, and has no ulterior motives (unless, of course it is a Chevrolet!). Stuff just breaks. It is the nature of stuff. There is a cause that can be located and fixed. This mechanical, fix-it approach works well with machines, the problem is, that we take this same approach and try to apply it to ourselves, and to others. Fixing things with skin and bones is a bit more complicated than fixing things with nuts and bolts!
The real issue, however, is not trying to figure out how to fix the problem, and thus, ending the temporary situation. The real issue, for the child of God, is coming to grips with what God is using the trial to accomplish in us. The trials serve as refining tools in the hand of God, and unless we realize that, and submit to it, even if we do figure out how to fix the problem, thus temporarily ending the trial, they have ultimately served no purpose. Fixing the problem may prematurely abort the work of God. God will often use some trial to stop us “dead in our tracks” even in the middle of what may seem good to us at the time, because He wants to show us something that is far more important in the long run than simply the thing that has broken.
When something suddenly changes, like an unexpected illness, or the sudden unexpected loss of a job, when it seems like things are falling apart, maybe instead of trying so hard to get back to “business as usual” we should have the good sense to stop what we are doing, and ask God what He is doing. Ask Him what He is trying to say to us in those times. Sometimes, it is the only way He can get our attention.
We live in a society that has a “quick fix” mentality. I honestly believe that a lot of well-meaning Christians, in the effort to fix themselves, or their problems, have aborted the work of God in their lives. When our primary focus is on ending the immediate crisis that a problem has caused, instead of seeking to understand what God is working in the process, we abort the long-term work of God in our lives.
Let me give you a couple of practical examples of this. One example is the lonely man or woman. We live in a society that has an out of balance interpretation of romantic love. Don’t misunderstand me. Romantic love is a good and healthy thing between a man and a woman within the context of marriage, or leading up to marriage. Too much romance before marriage can create problems if it leads to sexual involvement, but not enough romance after marriage can also be damaging to the relationship. However, our society has made a god out of romance, and portrays romance, and the false idea that finding that perfect “soulmate” can create unending bliss. This is nonsense, and it is not reality. Wrong notions of romance make a god of the idea of the perfect mate. News Flash: There is no such thing as a perfect mate! If you are looking for another person to meet your need for ultimate satisfaction, instead of looking to God to fulfill this soul need, you are setting your relationship up for failure. You are expecting too much from your mate. You are expecting something from him or her that they can never fulfill.
A lonely man or woman may become involved with, and possibly marry the wrong person in an effort to solve the immediate problem of loneliness. I have seen this happen more than once. Does that mean that later they have the right to divorce that person once they have realized they acted in haste and not sought the will of God in their selection of a mate? Absolutely not. The only Scriptural grounds I can find for divorce is infidelity. Can this type of marriage entered into in haste become a good marriage? Absolutely! Through God’s grace anything is possible. The point to all of this is that the lonely man or woman should have God as their primary focus, and not their immediate desire for a mate to end their loneliness. Also, marriage motivated by the desire for a regular sex partner is also going to prove to be unsatisfactory eventually. The lonely person should be seeking to understand what God desires to teach them through their loneliness. Loneliness at its core is ultimately the sense of alienation from God, our Creator. This cannot be solved by the presence of another human being. This is not to say that we do not need other people. We are social beings. God created us as social beings. We are made to live in relationship and community, but relationship and community cannot take the primary place in our heart that is reserved only for God. God must be first in the order, then others. If not, others will only temporarily fill that need. The company of a good mate is a blessing. The company of others is a blessing. However, if we are alienated from God in our hearts, having all the company in the world, even the company of an adoring mate, will not solve this problem.
Another example to illustrate my main point, is the person who gets rich quick through winning some money, or getting an inheritance, or something like that. I remember reading an article several years ago about people who had won large sums of money in the lottery or some other give-away. Haven’t we all at times had the fantasy of suddenly getting a bunch of money which we could use to pay off the mortgage, and buy new cars that do not need repair. We could have the vacations we never seem to be able to afford. Hey, I have tracked there mentally, I don’t deny it. (FYI, I do not play the lottery or gamble.) What was interesting in the article is how many people who do suddenly win large sums of money go through it so quickly. Many of them, although their dream has come true, and they have the opportunity to make themselves financially stable for the remainder of their lives, become poor again, or at best, financially average. So, the idea that money will solve all of life’s problems is really not true.
God can use our financial problems to teach us many things. He can use them to humble us and make us grateful. He can use them to teach us to be better stewards. He can use them to teach us to trust Him as our provider. He can use them to teach us to be compassionate toward the less fortunate. He will expose to us whether or not we are making money our god. Jesus plainly said that a man cannot serve God and money. He will hate the one, and love the other. A poor man will say that money is not his god, and come to that conclusion because of his lack of money. But if he is bound up in worry and fear because of his lack of money, then money is, in fact, his god. His lack of money is what is controlling his thoughts, motives, and actions.
Let me ask you this: Are you experiencing problems in your life right now? For some people, that might be like me asking you if you are breathing. You live, you have problems, you have trials. That is a given. But is there any one specific thing that you are struggling with right now? Once you have put your finger on that one thing, or those things, I want you to go to God in prayer and ask Him what He is using these problems to accomplish in your life. What does He want you to learn? Take your mind off finding a solution to the problem for the time being. Don’t get bogged down in trying to use human logic to figure out how to fix the problem. Try doing what James instructs us: “Rejoice in the trial.” God may be using it to accomplish some greater purpose in your life. His purpose is to restore His image in us, to conform us to His likeness, and His character. That is the highest any of us can aspire to anyway.
Meditate on these words from the Heidelberg Catechism:
What is your only comfort in life and in death?
“That I am not my own, but belong body and soul, in life and in death, to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with His precious blood, and set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in Heaven. In fact, all things must work together for my salvation. Because I belong to Him, Christ, by His Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me whole-heartedly willing and ready from now on to live for Him.”
I remember when I was a child, my mother would tell me to not drink coffee. She said it would stunt my growth. (Sometimes I wonder if she was just trying to save all of the coffee for herself. With four boys all close in age, I am sure she needed it!) For a while, I thought that there might be some validity to what she said. I have always loved coffee, and I am short. However, my pastor is a coffee fiend, and he is about six foot five inches, so the whole coffee stunting your growth thing is debatable. If my mother really believed this, I am sure her intentions were right in telling me this. No one wants to see the growth of the ones we love stunted. God does not want to see our spiritual growth stunted. He wants us to grow into maturity. “To be mature, and complete, not lacking anything.” If we avoid the trials, or try to get out of them, we risk aborting the growth He intends by allowing the trials to come to us.
Embrace your pain, and the trials God allows to come into your life. That does not mean that you must like them. God may be using them to accomplish far more than you can imagine. Get out of His way! Again:
“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith developed perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”
The trials are going to come. It is not a matter of “if”, but “when.” Since we know that, we might as well let them do their work. What is the alternative?
Danny's Stump 