MAY 22-23

“Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have it's perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” - James 1: 2-4

We're a fickle, inconsistent lot where faith is concerned, aren't we? We sing “My faith looks up to Thee”....until the bills become due and we don't have the money to pay them, we lose our jobs, our health breaks down, or a loved one dies – be it sudden or after long drawn-out suffering. We have faith for a week – a month or two, but what about one year? Two years? Maybe even the rest of our lives?....that's another story.

In the text above, James is more or less saying that faith is rather like muscles – if you don't endure with the exercises, your faith will become flabby and eventually fail to work. Faith is built up bit by bit. Don't run away when things go wrong. Don't escape! Don't give up!

Consider the list of examples of faith highlighted in Hebrews chapter eleven, and how they illustrate that faith is built up and exercised over a lifetime – ordinary people, making progress one day, and putting their foot in it the next – just like me and you.

Noah was a farmer who went into the boat building business...120 years before his act of faith was fulfilled. Abraham, 'just a businessman,' raised by adolatrous parents – think of the faith he showed when called to sacrifice his son! Then there is Joseph, a slave with a prison record, who clung to his faith, despite the treatment he had received from his brothers in the past. He became a prime minister. Moses was a shepherd working for his father-in-law out in the desert. He didn't do a thing that was spiritually significant for eighty years. And what about Rahab, Rahab the harlot-the prostitute. Coming from that background, she was still entered in the Bible as a woman of faith.

Where faith is concerned the odds are always going to be overwhelming, otherwise there's no need to trust.. For each of these, their muscles were strong from perseverance. They each experienced the 'ups and downs' of life, just as we do....the falls, the set-backs when faith became flabby. But they didn't give up. These are the kind of people God is searching for. People who act in faith. People whose lives are being turned right side up through perfect trust.

Let us learn to say, “Lord, this is Your battle. This is Your need that You allowed me to trust You for. And I'm waiting for You to do it. I'm willing to wait as long as necessary for You to do the impossible in my heart and life.”

Our music today is Bryn's choice, “I'm Not Giving Up” - (LIVE) Click as usual on the picture to listen.