I’m amazed at
the words from James 1:4, it’s as if I never read them before. James is saying that one of the ways to lack
nothing and not have a deficiency is to “let
endurance have its perfect
work.” Perseverance is the will to
see things through until the end in spite of fear, difficulties, failure, or
opposition.
God recently landed on this verse for me and made it come
alive. This verse is loaded with nuggets
for us. Firstly if we read it starting
at the end, it says that we will lack nothing, if we surrender to endurance and
perseverance. We must let it run its
course. How many times do I short-circuit what God is doing in my life because
it’s too hard and I’m too uncomfortable?
In this scripture James is saying in essence that we must give
permission for endurance/perseverance to finish. It’s
so easy, for me, in a western culture to pull myself out of persevering due to
the resources that surround me. Yet
often on the mission field, we are faced with areas that require focused
perseverance and can lack the resources and relationships to rescue
ourselves. These areas of perseverance, when
we face head on, process through and finish, release in us maturity, a completion,
a perfection and . . . we do not lack
anything!
Revelation
3:10 says, ‘Since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also
keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come on the whole world to
test the inhabitants of the earth.”
Exodus
8:22 - 23 “But on that day I will deal differently with the land of Goshen,
where my people live; no swarms of flies will be there, so that you will know
that I, the Lord, am in this land. I
will make a distinction between my people and your people. This sign will occur
tomorrow.”
He has done it
before and He can do it again, where there is a distinction made between God’s
people and the world. This is a
supernatural distinction, where inside of perseverance we do not lack and we
are kept from the hour of trail.
Today I am encouraged to persevere. Even when we do not know the outcome, or our
soul starts to feel deeply uncomfortable – let us be encouraged to throw off
everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run
with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the
Pioneer and Perfecter of faith and push through to that place where we lack
nothing inside of everything that has purchased for us in Jesus.
"I Will Fight" Video Attached: https://youtu.be/XyzG7F-CS7U