Jam 1:5-6 | KingComments | STEP | . The call of James to consider it all joy when you encounter various trials, connects wonderfully to the wish of the previous verse. By addressing his readers with “my brethren” after the general salutation of that verse, he makes them feel how much he is connected to them. It emphasizes again that he doesn’t address them as a leader, but as a fellow brother. Without any other introduction James speaks directly about “various trials”. He suddenly places you in the world and what you can possibly go through there. In the world the trueness of your confession is tested by temptations and trials. For the company to whom James is writing, that trial consists primarily of poverty. That may also be the case for you. But these trials can also be sickness, invalidity, unemployment or the passing away of a beloved person. These are all trials that the Lord allows on the path of the believers to see in whom they put their trust. James therefore starts with the test of the trueness of the faith. As is already said in the introduction, the point for him is the practice of their life of faith. You may say that the world with its trials is the testing room of the faith. James tells his brothers to welcome the trials to which they are exposed, with a feeling of joy. That seems like an impossible order, doesn’t it? It even seems to be in contradiction to what Peter says in his first letter. Peter actually says that trials cause distress ( ) and that’s easier to understand. Still it only is an apparent and not a real contradiction. James and Peter approach trials from two different points of view. When you are going through a trial, it makes you distressed, sad. You do not undergo a trial stoically and unstirred ( ). Nevertheless you may remind yourself that each trial is a matter that God has planned in your life. He is dealing with you. The important thing for James is the fact of the trial of which he emphasizes that it may be different for each person. That’s why he speaks about ‘various’. The purpose is that the trial you are going through, drives you out to God. If that indeed happens, it is a result that makes you rejoice, but above all it is a result that rejoices God. In that way you are able to experience something that Paul has experienced, which caused him to say: “As sorrowful yet always rejoicing” ( ). . James also explains to his readers why they should count it all joy when they fall into trials. He can also tell them that they know the purpose of the trials. After all they know that those trials, through which their faith is tested, make their faith stronger and those trials also challenge them to hold on. The purpose that God has with the trials we encounter, is to teach us to endurance. Endurance is the proof of true faith. You may say now: ‘Does salvation then depend on our own efforts after all?’ No, absolutely not. Salvation is anchored in the work of Christ. When we say that we are saved, it will be proved by the endurance in faith, even though we encounter the toughest trials. The most difficult thing of trials is the time that it can take. Sometimes you manage to maintain yourself well and keep on trusting God if you suddenly encounter a trial. But the real test comes if the trial takes longer. Then that is precisely the time to keep on trusting God that He has everything in control. Then it is important to trust that He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able ( ). . In case the trial keeps on going that long that you may think: ‘When will it ever end?’ then that is a trial that has the purpose to let endurance have its perfect result. In the life of a Christian endurance is an important characteristic. When Paul summarizes the signs of an apostle he mentions first ‘perseverance’, endurance ( ). To both James and Paul the word endurance or perseverance means: to bear the suffering with endurance or perseverance. Like James also Paul shows the blessed results of endurance or perseverance in trials ( ). An example of a person with whom endurance did not have its perfect result, is king Saul. He is not able to wait for Samuel and offers the burnt offering too early. That costs him his kingdom ( ). But also David fails in his endurance. He is continually chased by Saul. The long duration of that trial becomes too much for him at a certain moment and he says to himself: “Now I will perish one day by the hand of Saul” ( ). The only solution he sees is to seek refuge with the Philistines. That indeed delivers him the rest he was looking for, because Saul no longer chases him, but he, however, loses his fellowship with God. With him endurance did not have its perfect result, because instead of asking God for wisdom about what he should do, he came up with his own solution. In contrast to Saul, David came back later on the path of and with God and in that way endures until the end. Endurance lasts until you at a certain moment completely subject yourself to the will of God. “Have [its] perfect result” indicates actually that you fully subject yourself to God and that His will becomes yours. That is a process and that process will last your whole life. With the Lord Jesus there was no own will, but He was certainly tempted as us, yet without sin ( ). With Him the result of the temptation was that He has been made perfect. In that way He became the source of eternal salvation ( ). If this work has been fulfilled in you, in other words, if you are fully subjected to God, that doing His will is the only thing that you desire, then you are “perfect and complete” and you lack nothing. That does not mean that you now know everything of God’s will and that you do not need to learn anything from God anymore. The point is that you have rest in the will of God with your life and the circumstances you find yourself in. You trust Him that He only wants your best. In that subjection to Him He can reveal His will to you. You are then accessible to Him and also usable. The perfection James is talking about here, has got nothing to do with sinlessness. Even if you live in subjection to God, it can occur that you, how well your intention may be, still sin. An example of that you see in the life of Peter. He really wanted to live fully subjected to the Lord. He even said that he was willing to give his life for Him. But the Lord had to tell him that he was going to deny Him three times. With all his good intentions Peter was blind to his own weakness. And because he even neglected the warning of the Lord, he sinned by denying the Lord. Fortunately, he repented and received forgiveness ( ; 54-62). Peter failed to endure in his faith when he was tempted because he lacked the wisdom for the right decision and for the right confession. . To be preserved from such experiences requires “wisdom”. Wisdom is making use of the knowledge that you have in the circumstances you find yourself, where your faith is put to the test. Because your faith is continually tested, you are continually in need of that wisdom. You will surely feel the lack of wisdom when you look at the life of the world around you. I surely do. To be able to go on, to be able to endure, it is important to see what the purposes of God are. That means that you need to go to Him, in the sanctuary. In the sanctuary you see which way God has in mind to go with you. You also see that His ultimate purpose is blessing. What a great word James is speaking about here. It is in fact a wonderful invitation. James invites you to ask God for wisdom. He also tells you how God responds to that request. generously and without reproach. If you ask people for help, you have a chance to be reproached. They just think you’re cheeky or they feel used or tell you to fend for yourself because they can't help you anyway. God does not react in such a way at all. If you ask Him, you will learn to know Him as a giving God. He is not a demander to whom you approach as a beggar to soften Him. No, He is a God Who loves to see you coming to Him, Who loves to listen to you and Who loves to answer you. Now read James 1:2-5 again. Reflection: Ask God for wisdom with a view to the temptations you are dealing with.

‏ James 1:5-6

Faith in the Midst of Trials

Jam 1:2. The call of James to consider it all joy when you encounter various trials, connects wonderfully to the wish of the previous verse. By addressing his readers with “my brethren” after the general salutation of that verse, he makes them feel how much he is connected to them. It emphasizes again that he doesn’t address them as a leader, but as a fellow brother.

Without any other introduction James speaks directly about “various trials”. He suddenly places you in the world and what you can possibly go through there. In the world the trueness of your confession is tested by temptations and trials. For the company to whom James is writing, that trial consists primarily of poverty. That may also be the case for you. But these trials can also be sickness, invalidity, unemployment or the passing away of a beloved person. These are all trials that the Lord allows on the path of the believers to see in whom they put their trust.

James therefore starts with the test of the trueness of the faith. As is already said in the introduction, the point for him is the practice of their life of faith. You may say that the world with its trials is the testing room of the faith.

James tells his brothers to welcome the trials to which they are exposed, with a feeling of joy. That seems like an impossible order, doesn’t it? It even seems to be in contradiction to what Peter says in his first letter. Peter actually says that trials cause distress (1Pet 1:6) and that’s easier to understand. Still it only is an apparent and not a real contradiction.

James and Peter approach trials from two different points of view. When you are going through a trial, it makes you distressed, sad. You do not undergo a trial stoically and unstirred (Heb 12:11). Nevertheless you may remind yourself that each trial is a matter that God has planned in your life. He is dealing with you.

The important thing for James is the fact of the trial of which he emphasizes that it may be different for each person. That’s why he speaks about ‘various’. The purpose is that the trial you are going through, drives you out to God. If that indeed happens, it is a result that makes you rejoice, but above all it is a result that rejoices God. In that way you are able to experience something that Paul has experienced, which caused him to say: “As sorrowful yet always rejoicing” (2Cor 6:10).

Jam 1:3. James also explains to his readers why they should count it all joy when they fall into trials. He can also tell them that they know the purpose of the trials. After all they know that those trials, through which their faith is tested, make their faith stronger and those trials also challenge them to hold on. The purpose that God has with the trials we encounter, is to teach us to endurance. Endurance is the proof of true faith.

You may say now: ‘Does salvation then depend on our own efforts after all?’ No, absolutely not. Salvation is anchored in the work of Christ. When we say that we are saved, it will be proved by the endurance in faith, even though we encounter the toughest trials.

The most difficult thing of trials is the time that it can take. Sometimes you manage to maintain yourself well and keep on trusting God if you suddenly encounter a trial. But the real test comes if the trial takes longer. Then that is precisely the time to keep on trusting God that He has everything in control. Then it is important to trust that He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able (1Cor 10:13).

Jam 1:4. In case the trial keeps on going that long that you may think: ‘When will it ever end?’ then that is a trial that has the purpose to let endurance have its perfect result. In the life of a Christian endurance is an important characteristic. When Paul summarizes the signs of an apostle he mentions first ‘perseverance’, endurance (2Cor 12:12). To both James and Paul the word endurance or perseverance means: to bear the suffering with endurance or perseverance. Like James also Paul shows the blessed results of endurance or perseverance in trials (Rom 5:3-5).

An example of a person with whom endurance did not have its perfect result, is king Saul. He is not able to wait for Samuel and offers the burnt offering too early. That costs him his kingdom (1Sam 13:8-14). But also David fails in his endurance. He is continually chased by Saul. The long duration of that trial becomes too much for him at a certain moment and he says to himself: “Now I will perish one day by the hand of Saul” (1Sam 27:1).

The only solution he sees is to seek refuge with the Philistines. That indeed delivers him the rest he was looking for, because Saul no longer chases him, but he, however, loses his fellowship with God. With him endurance did not have its perfect result, because instead of asking God for wisdom about what he should do, he came up with his own solution. In contrast to Saul, David came back later on the path of and with God and in that way endures until the end.

Endurance lasts until you at a certain moment completely subject yourself to the will of God. “Have [its] perfect result” indicates actually that you fully subject yourself to God and that His will becomes yours. That is a process and that process will last your whole life. With the Lord Jesus there was no own will, but He was certainly tempted as us, yet without sin (Heb 4:15). With Him the result of the temptation was that He has been made perfect. In that way He became the source of eternal salvation (Heb 5:7-10).

If this work has been fulfilled in you, in other words, if you are fully subjected to God, that doing His will is the only thing that you desire, then you are “perfect and complete” and you lack nothing. That does not mean that you now know everything of God’s will and that you do not need to learn anything from God anymore. The point is that you have rest in the will of God with your life and the circumstances you find yourself in. You trust Him that He only wants your best. In that subjection to Him He can reveal His will to you. You are then accessible to Him and also usable.

The perfection James is talking about here, has got nothing to do with sinlessness. Even if you live in subjection to God, it can occur that you, how well your intention may be, still sin. An example of that you see in the life of Peter. He really wanted to live fully subjected to the Lord. He even said that he was willing to give his life for Him. But the Lord had to tell him that he was going to deny Him three times.

With all his good intentions Peter was blind to his own weakness. And because he even neglected the warning of the Lord, he sinned by denying the Lord. Fortunately, he repented and received forgiveness (Lk 22:33-34; 54-62). Peter failed to endure in his faith when he was tempted because he lacked the wisdom for the right decision and for the right confession.

Jam 1:5. To be preserved from such experiences requires “wisdom”. Wisdom is making use of the knowledge that you have in the circumstances you find yourself, where your faith is put to the test. Because your faith is continually tested, you are continually in need of that wisdom. You will surely feel the lack of wisdom when you look at the life of the world around you. I surely do.

To be able to go on, to be able to endure, it is important to see what the purposes of God are. That means that you need to go to Him, in the sanctuary. In the sanctuary you see which way God has in mind to go with you. You also see that His ultimate purpose is blessing.

What a great word James is speaking about here. It is in fact a wonderful invitation. James invites you to ask God for wisdom. He also tells you how God responds to that request. generously and without reproach.

If you ask people for help, you have a chance to be reproached. They just think you’re cheeky or they feel used or tell you to fend for yourself because they can't help you anyway. God does not react in such a way at all. If you ask Him, you will learn to know Him as a giving God. He is not a demander to whom you approach as a beggar to soften Him. No, He is a God Who loves to see you coming to Him, Who loves to listen to you and Who loves to answer you.

Now read James 1:2-5 again.

Reflection: Ask God for wisdom with a view to the temptations you are dealing with.

Do Not Doubt, but Persevere

Jam 1:6. In the previous section you saw that God loves to see you come to Him. But there is a condition attached to it. That condition is that you should come “in faith” (cf. Heb 11:6) and without any doubt in your heart concerning His kindness. If you ask God for wisdom, while you still doubt His kindness for giving that wisdom, you look like the surf of the sea. In such a case you focus yourself on God to ask Him for wisdom, while in your heart you still seek other possibilities where you might find wisdom to escape the trial. You open yourself to God, but at the same time you listen to the opinions of others or you look at the circumstances and make your decisions dependent on that.

Then there is no room for God to make something clear to you. The result of such an attitude is that you are tossed to and fro, like a wave of the sea is driven up and down. Doubt looks like the open sea, where the waves are a plaything of the wind. Such is a man who doubts: he is a plaything of opinions of other people to which he opens himself.

Jam 1:7. It is not wrong to seek one another for advice, but that advice is not to take the first and leading place. If the advice of others means that much to you that your trust in God is not effective anymore, you will receive nothing from the Lord. Seeking others for advice or listening to the good advice of others, must on the contrary increase the confidence in God. God wants you to trust Him unconditionally.

Jam 1:8. A man who doesn’t do that is “double-minded”. That such a man is inwardly double-minded will also appear from his ways. He is “unstable” in all his ways, it is not possible to understand him. You may think for a moment that he is on the right way, but a moment later he goes a totally different direction. He is not a reliable person. He has a wavering course. He has no stability at all in his faith life.

Jam 1:9. After the general principles about endurance in trials, James applies these principles to “the brother of humble circumstances”. You can derive that from the word “but”. In that way James makes a contrast with what is earlier said and especially with the doubtful person. The lowly or socially deprived brother is in danger to doubt the love of God for him. As an Israelite he was raised with the thought that richness is the proof of God’s blessing and that poverty is the proof that God’s blessing is withheld, due to unfaithfulness. But things are not like that anymore, James says. Poverty is not necessarily a proof of unfaithfulness and God’s dissatisfaction about that. Poverty is a temptation that can be endured with joy because it can be seen as a test of faith.

James adds a special encouragement to that. He says to the socially deprived one that he may rejoice in his spiritual riches and “his high position”. He may do so because of his connection to Christ. The poor may glory in his exaltation because Christ is not ashamed to call him ‘brother’ (Heb 2:11). This title is ignored and counted as nothing in the world. The poor, however, knows that the glory of this world will pass away as a flower of the field, while he rejoices to be a partaker of those who are acknowledged by the Lord of glory as His own.

Jam 1:10. James has also a word for the socially prosperous one. The rich man who glories or boasts in his riches must realize that in a spiritual sense he is lowly and poor in his riches. James calls on the rich man to glory “in his humiliation”, which means in what he in himself is to God. In himself the rich man is a sinner who cannot stand before God. In addition, it will be a good thing for him to realize that all his riches will pass away. That not only goes for the riches of the rich man, but also for the rich man himself, “he will pass away”.

Jam 1:11. Grass represents the prosperity of human life with its inextricable link that that prosperity will quickly pass away. The flower gives the grass color and luster, but the color and luster of the flower also pass away quickly.

You see the illustration of that in the history that the Lord Jesus tells about the poor Lazarus and the rich man (Lk 16:19-25). Lazarus was really poor. The rich man did not care about him at all. Lazarus means ‘God is help’ and God had brought Lazarus in such particular circumstances to bring the meaning of his name into practice. Lazarus had nothing and no one else to help him, but God. The rich man lived only for himself alone and needed no help from God. But at the other side of death the roles are reversed. There the rich has become a poor man and the poor Lazarus has become a rich man.

The value of being rich, or better said, the meaninglessness of being rich, appears to be as the heat of the sun as an illustration of tests in life. If sickness and death make their entry, it appears that health and life are priceless and not for sale, even if a person would possess all the money of the world.

You can also see the sun with its heat as a metaphor of the Lord Jesus, Who is presented as “the sun of righteousness” (Mal 4:2). When He comes to judge the earth He will humiliate everything that is lofty and lifted up (Isa 2:10-12). What man considers highly and prominently, will be destroyed by Him. All things in which the heart of man can possibly put his trust and through which he thinks not to need God for, will pass away when the Sun of righteous appears. In the light of the Sun, which reveals everything, it will be seen what it has been all worth.

Jam 1:12. With the promise “blessed” to the man who perseveres under trial, James concludes the introductory section about the test of faith. The man who has overcome the trial, receives beside that approval also a reward. To him “the crown of life” will be given.

The Greek word for ‘crown’ here is stephanos. There is another word for crown, the word diadema. The ‘diadem’ is the symbol of royalty or imperial dignity. That word is quite often used in the book of Revelation. Here it is stephanos, which is a crown of honor as a symbol for a winner. This crown is not of gold, but of bay leaves. Therefore it has no material value. The symbolic value, however, is enormous, because of the honor that goes together with it.

This crown is received by someone who has delivered an exceptional achievement. This crown was to be gained during the Olympic Games in those days. With this crown in view, a participant was prepared to make great efforts and impose on himself all sorts of denials. The stephanos is a great encouragement to run the race.

In this sense the ‘crown of life’, also mentioned in Revelation 2 (Rev 2:10), will be handed over by the Lord Jesus on the day of decoration. Other crowns to be deserved will also be handed out on that day, like ‘the crown of righteousness’ (2Tim 4:8) and ‘the unfading crown of glory’ (1Pet 5:4). Those who have endured the trials and who have testified not to be living for the life on earth, but for the true life, who were even prepared to pay their faithfulness with death, will receive that crown as an exceptional homage from God.

When the Lord Jesus returns with His own, they will be characterized by ‘life’. That means that it will be seen by all people that they bear the special mark of the Lord Jesus as the life, for He is the life (Jn 11:25 ; Jn 14:6). They will bear life as an honorary distinction. The life that they have lived and of which the excellent quality in the most difficult circumstances has been demonstrated, will be received out of the hand of the Lord Jesus, what will be visible to all people. In this way He will be glorified in His saints and will be marveled at among all who have believed (2Thes 1:10).

We ought to be Christians who exercise themselves in abstaining from everything that could keep them from gaining the prize (1Cor 9:27). To be able to do that with heart and soul, we need love. James speaks about that in the last part of Jam 1:12. Only those who love Christ are prepared to subject themselves to a hard and long lasting exercise.

“Those who love Him” is a wonderful expression, which appears four times in the New Testament, of which two times in this letter (Rom 8:28; 1Cor 2:9, Jam 1:12 ; Jam 2:5). That shows that the true practice of faith is only possible if love for the Lord Jesus is the driving force. Only love for Him will have the effect in you that you exert yourself and make sacrifices. To make that happen in you a total change had to take place, for you were an enemy of God. Loving God is your answer to God’s love for you.

Now read James 1:6-12 again.

Reflection: How can you receive the crown of life?