Staying power

For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing. James 1:3-4 NLT

James, from the text, provides another rationale why Christians can find reasons to be joyful even in times of trials. He says, “when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow” (James 1:3). Testing produces perseverance. We grow in faith when we persevere. We experience what God develops in us, staying power, and this is what trials alone can produce. There is no way we can be strong if we are not going to be tested. God knows that we need to grow dealing with trials in life, for through them, all the more we draw on God’s inexhaustible grace. It is through trials in life that we seek God’s presence. Once we improve experiencing God’s staying power while going though trials in life, we will attain spiritual maturity. “When your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing” (James 1:4). Spiritual maturity includes growth in character that God wants to develop in His children. The Apostle Peter provides a challenge to every believer that when they exercise their faith in God during times of trials, godly character develops: “Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone. The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:5-8). In our spiritual maturity, our character is enhanced thus producing wholeness within. Let us continue to trust God that when we go through various trials in life—financial woes, persecutions because of our belief, disappointments when things are not working well, criticisms, calamities, illnesses—His grace is made available to us so we can stay strong. Let us not fall into false assumption that our trials in life will lessen or subside. Also, let us not fall into Satan’s deception that trials are expressions of God’s displeasure to us, but to the contrary. This is how Paul encouraged believers in Rome: “We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love” (Romans 5:3-5).

Blessings,