True Faith - 1

"James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes scattered among the nations: Greetings.

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, when 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 1:1-4

Three things we know right from the beginning. James was a Jew. And he wrote this letter to fellow Jews who had been awaiting the long-promised Messiah. And the fellow Jews receiving this letter had placed their faith in Jesus Christ as that Messiah.

Also, right from the beginning, we see some problems that these Jewish Christians are likely thinking about. They are scattered. Yet the Messiah was supposed to restore their nation. They are facing persecution. Yet when Messiah came, they were supposed to be victorious over their enemies. The reality of life after Messiah wasn't matching up with their expectations before Messiah. Obviously, some encouragement was needed.

In these first few verses, James encourages his brethren by inviting them to embrace the difficulties they were facing, rather than allowing those difficulties to tempt them to turn away from their faith in Christ as the Messiah.

Other translations of this passage replace the word "trials" with "temptations." The Greek word used by James is more accurately translated as "temptations." When we first see this word we're tempted to think of "temptations" in terms of enticements to sin. But we would be mistaken to interpret this as James encouraging us to embrace the enticements to sin that come our way.

Instead, James is talking about things that were coming against the Jews that could make them think they had possibly gotten it wrong about Jesus being the Messiah, enticing them to turn away from their faith. Suffering when they should be prospering, being persecuted when they should be living in peace, being defeated by their enemies when they should be victorious in battle...all of these things held the potential of convincing these Jews that they had made a terrible mistake in believing Christ was the Messiah.

We're not much different today. We place our faith in Christ and begin living the Christian life, only to find that life doesn't always get easier. We still get sick. We find ourselves persecuted, even killed by enemies of God. We face many of the same difficulties in life that people who are not Christians face. Did we get it wrong? Isn't life supposed to get better...easier...when we become Christians?

James is pretty clear here. Life will still be hard after you accept the Messiah Jesus. But now, embrace those difficulties because they serve two very important purposes in your life as a Christian. First, they test the authenticity of your faith. It's easy to call yourself a Christian in church on Sunday. But can you still do it when you find that professing Christ may cost you your job on Monday? What if professing Christ would result in having your head separated from your shoulders? The second purpose that these difficulties serve is in the development of character. Every time you pass through a difficulty and come through on the other side still worshipping Christ, you are stronger and better prepared to face the next difficulty that comes.

The testing of our faith that we all face both reveals True Faith and develops True Faith.