Count It All Joy When Ye Are Tested, Knowing That The Trying Of Your Faith Works Patience - Part 2067

When we stand upon the Rock, which is the Christ, as the Israelites did when they passed through the Red Sea, we know in whom we serve. The Israelites trusted that the Lord would make a way when there seemed to be no way. In this example, the Egyptians were behind them and the Red Sea before them, and from a worldly context, it seemed that all was futile. But nothing is lost with our Lord God and Saviour. He guides our steps, opening the doors that only He could open. It is for this reason that we count it all joy when we are tested, because we can know that the trying of our faith works patience.

But not only does temptation and times of testing increase our faith but as James writes, in so doing, we let patience have her perfect work, which essentially means we are complete, wanting nothing. Complete. Wanting nothing.

Why? Because the Lord Jesus in whom we serve has taken care of the details. He has placed His purpose in our hearts, and when we are in awe of Him, marvelling at His mercy and grace, we have everything we need. And should it be wisdom that we desire, we are to ask of God, that gives to all men liberally, and upbraids not. Think about this for a moment.

Herein, the Lord has given to us His blessing when we lift Him up in everything we do. Can you even imagine a better place to be in life, where the Lord God of the heavens, who loved us enough to become our Saviour, has every step we take in Him covered. It is no wonder we can pray without ceasing and rejoice evermore because He has proven Himself to be more than faithful to those who believe in Him in their hearts.

If you have not taken the first step yet, and repented of your sins, and asked the Lord Jesus into your heart, please do so now, and then be water baptized in the precious Name of Jesus so that you too shall be filled with the Holy Ghost. (Acts 2:36-41) Your life will never be the same! Find a new testament translation -- not a revision -- and ask the Lord Jesus to reveal Himself to you, and His purpose for you in this life.

Yes, Jesus is our all in all. Stand in awe of His goodness and grace today.

From James 1:

"My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; knowing this,that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways. Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted: but the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away. For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways.

Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him. Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: but every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.

Do not err, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted Word, which is able to save your souls. But be ye doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.

For if any be a hearer of the Word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continues therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.

If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridles not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world."

Stand in the offering plate.