20170917 reduse, reuse, recycle e
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Trials and difficulties are opportunities to strengthen faith through patience. While testing is difficult, remaining faithful and asking God for wisdom will lead to spiritual maturity and completeness. One must approach God with undivided faith and loyalty, without doubting, in order to receive assistance during life's challenges.
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20170917 reduse, reuse, recycle e
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- 2. SUNDAY 17 September 2017 REDUCS, REUSE, RECYCLE
- 3. JAS 1:2-8 NKJV My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything they do.
- 4. FAITH FOR TOUGH TIMES • Perspective • Patience • Perfection • Petition • Persistence
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Editor's Notes
- Perspective – a Radical Approach to Trials - “Consider” means to think, count, or regard something based on weighing and comparing of facts. It denotes deliberate and careful judgment stemming from external proof, not subjective judgment based on feelings (Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament[Harper & Brothers, 1887], p. 276; A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament, G. Abbott-Smith [Charles Scribner’s Sons], p. 119). Although powerful emotions are inevitable when we encounter severe trials, once the emotions have subsided a bit, we need to think about the trial from a biblical perspective. Patience is required because this takes time. This perspective is about seeing things with a longer view, even a view that considers eternity. One needs to weigh up present suffering against eternal impact. Rom 8:18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. Perfect complete lacking in nothing – A well rounded all inclusive faith that sufficient for all of life. God’s goal in the trials is “that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” Again, this does not mean that you can arrive at a state of sinless perfection or perfect maturity in this life. Rather, the idea is that you will be spiritually mature, well-equipped for the purpose that God created you. The fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23) will be evident in your daily life. Peter Davids says that the word complete “stresses the incremental character of the process. That is, perfection is not just a maturing of character, but a rounding out as more and more ‘parts’ of the righteous character are added” (New International Greek Commentary, JamesEerdmans], p. 70). Life is filled with real problems for which there are not always easy and simple answers. John Piper (Future Grace [Multnomah Press], pp. 171-172) relates the amazing story of Marie Durant (from Karl Olsson in Passion [Harper & Row]). In the late 17th century, in southern France, Marie was brought before the authorities and charged with the Huguenot heresy (being a Reformed Protestant). “She was fourteen years old, bright, attractive, marriageable.” She was asked to recant her Huguenot faith. “She was not asked to commit an immoral act, to become a criminal, or even to change the day-to-day quality of her behavior.” She was only asked to say, “I recant.” She refused. Together with thirty other Huguenot women, she was put into a tower by the sea and left there for 38 years. She and her fellow martyrs scratched on the wall of their prison tower the single word, “Resist!” Tourists still see and gape at that word on that stone. Olsson reflects (ibid., p. 172), We can understand a religion which enhances time… But we cannot understand a faith which is not nourished by the temporal hope that tomorrow things will be better. To sit in a prison room with thirty others and to see the day change into night and summer into autumn, to feel the slow systemic changes within one’s flesh: the drying and wrinkling of the skin, the loss of muscle tone, the stiffening of the joints, the slow stupefaction of the senses—to feel all this and still to persevere seems almost idiotic to a generation which has no capacity to wait and to endure. Piper points out that a key adjective in that story points to the power of Marie Durant’s endurance. Olsson said, “We cannot understand a faith which is not nourished by the temporal hope that tomorrow things will be better.” Piper adds (ibid.), “Surely we cannot, if ‘temporal’ hope is the only kind we have. But if there is a hope beyond this temporal life—if future grace extends into eternity—then there may be a profound understanding of such patience in this life.” When life is difficult and things don’t make sense speak to God. Persistence: Job 13:15 God might kill me, but I have no other hope. I am going to argue my case with him. Dan 3:17 "If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire; and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king. Dan 3:18 "But even if He does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.” Hold fast otherwise you will not make it through.
- Reduce, Reuse, Recycle– Have a faith that is not filled with fluf. 1Ti 1:3 As I urged you upon my departure for Macedonia, remain on at Ephesus so that you may instruct certain men not to teach strange doctrines, 1Ti 1:4 nor to pay attention to myths and endless genealogies, which give rise to mere speculation rather than furthering the administration of God which is by faith. 1Ti 1:5 But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. 1Ti 1:6 For some men, straying from these things, have turned aside to fruitless discussion, Our faith must be robust strong and reusable in every situation. Heb 11:1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Our faith must recycle the terrible things in this world into opportunities for good. Rom 8:28 And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.