Finger Thinking through James 008

Jas 1:3-4  knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.  (4)  And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

The purpose of trials is endurance the purpose of endurance is - magnificent!

It is by enduring - standing up under a load - that its perfection brings our perfecting and completeness.  Huh?????

OK - the word translated perfect (same word both times) means (the first usage) "finished" result.

The second time it is used most read the moral usage of the word, that one has all the necessary qualities one should have.

perfect ("finished") result, so that you may be perfect ("morally equipped with the qualitied you need to have")

Endurance's end goal is that we have all the necessary qualities we need to be "complete" or whole in all our parts.

Remember the idea of refining our "orific-ness?"  Only through refining does gold have all the qualities it should have - and none that it shouldn't.

That's the picture we need to keep in our heads when we consider how God makes use of trials in our lives.  Endurance keeps us in the pot until the dross rises to the top and is wiped or spooned away.

We live between the cross that brought grace and the second coming which utterly fulfills grace and carries us into eternity.  This "in between time" is tough but it is not without purpose.  

No, it is not to prepare of for heaven, though it should.  Rather it is to prepare us for the work God has for us to do in this in between time.  It is also a witness to the unbelieving world that our faith is real and our God trustworthy.   

Oh, they may see and reinterpret what they see as a failure on God's part especially if our trials stay active unto death.  But their judgement is wrong judgement.  God is shown to be real in our endurance and the qualities it produces regardless of the world's verdict.  

Trials are opportunities to partake of the grace of God there-by being refined, removing the dross, so that you may have the unfettered strength and reflect the beauty of Christ in you.