“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, when you face trials of many kinds, because you know the testing of your faith develops perseverance.”

Do you have that part memorized?  Our journey to memorize James 1 continues and we’re adding verse 4 this week:

‘Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.’

Mature.

Complete.

What awesome words!  Who doesn’t want to be mature and complete?

God is telling us that we get mature and complete by persevering with joy through our trials.

Persevering – a hard thing to do.

We like to give up when the going gets tough.

Our culture teaches us to choose the ‘easy’ way, the fast way, the immediate gratification way.

God says that those choices don’t lead to maturity and completeness.

We must choose the harder way of persevering, seeking God and growing in his wisdom through our trials.

Please help us persevere, dear Father.