Opportunity For Joy

² Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. ³ For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. ⁴ So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.
-James 1:2-4 (NLT)


How do you react when times of trouble comes your way? If you're like me, you dread times of trouble. It's kind of like when you have to pull a band-aid off your skin. It hurts. Times of trouble hurts. But, James teaches us a radically different look on times of trouble.


James writes in verse 2, "Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy." What? When troubles come, we should consider it great joy! That's different from the way I look at times of trouble. James goes on to explain why we should consider times of trouble as times of great joy. Verse 3 says, "For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow." When our faith is tested, our endurance can grow. That is what we all need today. We all need endurance. We need endurance to continue growing into the people that Jesus wants us to be. If you faith never gets tested, then your faith will never, ever, ever grow. Untested faith means nothing. Only when faith gets tested, is when faith grows. Verse 4 says, "So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing." We must let faith grow. Endurance helps faith grow. Look at what happens when faith grows, "you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing." Do you want to be complete? If so, your faith must go through times of testing. I want to be complete, I want to need nothing.


Friends, I don't know what times of troubles you will face today. But one thing I do know, you must accept it with joy. It's hard to do that, but know that this small test, this small time of trouble leads to greater things. How do you react to times of trouble? Think About It.