Study of James: Having Patience & Suffering
Sunday, March 15, 2020
Peace to Live By Study of James: Having Patience & Suffering - Daniel Litton
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Today we are continuing along in James chapter 5. We are winding things down here, as are coming around the curve to the final stretch. We have this week, and then next week will be our conclusion. If you recall, last week James talked about the ‘rich’ as he called them out for not treating people fairly. And we went over that section in detail, again, touching on things we want in our lives, and things we obtain and keep. I think it was a pretty interesting discussion, and if you missed it, you’re going to want to go back and listen.
Now, we come to verse 7 of James chapter 5. James is going to discuss the coming of Jesus back to the earth for the second time, which is always an interesting and encouraging discussion. So, reading verse 7 and 8: “Be patient, therefore, brothers and sisters, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.” (ESV)
We who believe in Jesus Christ know that he is going to come back again—really, technically speaking—he is going to come back twice more. He’s already been to the earth once, and that was to teach, guide, and pay our sin-debts in full so that we are no longer seen as guilty in front of God for our sins. It’s a tremendous thing. We all know, if we examine ourselves, that we’ve done wrong. We’ve done wrong in small ways and even big ways, and the only solution to cover that is through the blood of Jesus Christ. That’s the way God sees it. Anyway, Jesus is going to come again, first, at the Rapture of the Church. He will descend from Heaven into the sky of the earth, and those who have a personal relationship with him will fly up into the sky themselves to meet him there, and at the same time, receive their new, resurrection bodies. This is where we become truly complete. This is where we lose the sin-nature.
After the Rapture of the Church, we know that the Tribulation period begins, and this is where the antichrist, the leader of the one world government, emerges and takes reign. At that time will come the judgements from God—the Seals, the Trumpets, and the Bowl Judgments. Remember those? This is what the Book of the Revelation tells us. And it will be a tremendous time of pain for the inhabitants of the earth. This is when, of course, God has shifted his focus from bestowing grace on individuals and instead shifts his focus to providing judgment for unrepentant sin. Ignoring sin just doesn’t work now, and it certainly won’t be ignored then by God. People can try to pretend like they don’t sin, but God is watching and keeping count. He knows everything that everyone does, whether they know him or not. Because he is holy and cannot have anything unholy around him in his new universe, he’s going to deal, at that time, with anything that offends.
But James has instructed believers in Jesus to “Be patient.” Why patience? Being patient means we must be excited and looking forward for something to happen. Remember, patience is one of the ultimate character traits we are striving for in our lives; it is a characteristic of the Level Four Christian. According to James, what are we looking forward to? Well, I’ll go ahead and answer this question from my own perspective. I am looking forward, first, to being physically with Jesus, having our relationship come into complete manifestation, seeing him in person, one on one. Second, I am looking forward to getting rid of my sin-nature, no longer having to watch myself lest I sin, or trying to ward off sinful habits. Thirdly, I’ll get my new body. I will look the best I’ve looked, and have supernatural abilities at the same time. I’ll probably be able to fly, walk on water, and even teleport. It will be pretty cool. We’ll all be like superheroes we see in movies and on T.V. Finally, four, I’ll get to be with a lot of people who love me as I love them; some of whom I know from the earth, and many more that I have never met before—those I don’t know about and those perhaps that I do know about from past times.
So, all these benefits I’ve just discussed, and I’m sure you could name more, are the reasons, after we think about it, that we need to “Be patient.” Thinking about these great things can really stir up our emotions and excitement level so that we want these things sooner than later. I notice when thinking about them deeply that I lose sight of even thinking about earthly things. And this is the point. This is what the Apostle Paul instructed the Colossians to do. He said, “[S]eek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth” (1b-2, ESV). When we really stop and think about these things, we are keeping this instruction from Paul. These are great things. They can encourage us even when things aren’t going so well in our lives. We can think about these things, and thus lift ourselves out of any depressing thoughts by realizing what is really important.
James gives us the example of the farmer. Let’s read it again, “See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains.“ I think it’s safe to say that the earth is currently experiencing “the late rains.” I mean, after all, we are closer to Jesus’ return then we have ever been, right? That’s just the truth of the matter. And the way things are going, what we are seeing going on in our world, especially in Israel, and perhaps the increasing of sin, shows us that we are closer. Perhaps, it could happen anytime. I think it could. It’s a good thing for us to keep that in mind as we go about our lives. This is because we don’t want to become too attached to this earth in that we would find ourselves bothered if in fact we did hear Jesus’ voice in a moment from the sky, telling us to “Come up here.” We don’t want to hesitate. We don’t want to stop and think, “Wait, I’m not ready to go.”
This leads James to say, “You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.” Notice that the call from James to us is to make sure that we are ready to go. We do that by establishing our hearts. What does establish mean? We could say establish means to erect, build, station, ring in, organize, practice, or settle. The point is that we come to a conclusion, we come to a settlement, a place in our hearts where we are firmly established in the Lord so that we are then ready if he in fact he does come in our lifetimes. This begets true freedom for us, as Christians, and allows us to live within the Law of Liberty in our lives, actually making truly good choices for ourselves. Besides, even if Jesus doesn’t return in our lifetimes, this is still a good practice due to the fact that we don’t know when our number will be called, and we then transcend this life. We want to actually transcend, to rise above, and not descend, or go up with our heads hanging in shame or disappointment. That’s no fun. We don’t want Jesus to feel ashamed to receive us. We don’t want him to have negative emotions about our coming because we weren’t ready.
Next, we read, “Do not grumble against one another, brothers and sisters, so that you may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing at the door.” There is a great cross-reference verse here, and I want to consider it. This is from Paul’s letter to the Philippians, when he said, “Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world” (Philippians 2:14-15, ESV). So, this action of not grumbling from both James and Paul shows that we are a people in God acting in a way that is supposed to show better behavior than others—those who don’t reverence God. Our interactions with each other, are supposed to stand out so that those who don’t know God see that we really treat each other well. Of course, we certainly don’t always live up to this, unfortunately, but can rather, on the other hand, be even more divisive than many of those living without God.
What does it mean to grumble? We should probably define that so that we don’t find ourselves doing it. The idea behind grumble here in James, when comparing this verse here in the ESV with other Bible translations, seems to be the idea of complaining. So, we could say we are not to complain, find fault, fight, argue, scold, or reprimand another. That’s the idea here. The point is that we, as Christians, as believers in Jesus, are to be treating our fellow brothers and sisters with kindness and praise. Even when we disagree, and those times are certainly going to happen every now and then, a lot of times we are just going to have to look the other way. We are going to have to bite our tongue and move on, letting that difference of opinion go. The higher we are on our own consciousness level, the higher we’ve moved up in our own, personal character development, the easier this will be.
Notice James tells us that if we do decide to grumble against one another that we could in fact find ourselves being judged. Not by others, though, that may happen too. But the idea here is that we may be judged by God himself, by Jesus. We are judged because, remember, he said, “Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven” (Luke 6:37, ESV). Or, a little bit later in the same passage, he said, “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,' when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye?” (Luke 6:41-42a, ESV). Notice the self-evaluation that needs to occur here. Instead of looking at and focusing on others, Jesus points us to look at ourselves.
This one is tuff. It requires us to surrender our own self-righteousness. We obviously want to think that we are right in whatever belief it is that we hold. We want to believe that the other person is totally wrong. A lot of times it is in between in that we are right, but also the other person is right. I know, that hurts. It’s just the simple truth that, due to our varying perspectives, we are not always completely right and the other person completely wrong. And besides all of this, sometimes we are not in a position to judge in the first place. We are upset with a brother or sister over something that, if we would just take a look at ourselves in the mirror, we find that we do all the time, or do something like it all the time. We are upset with others for things that we do ourselves. This really is pathetic.
Regardless, we don’t want God upset with us because we are too strong in our disagreement with another that we cannot let it go. Recall the verse that says, “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil” (Ephesians 4:26-27, ESV). Perhaps it really is true that we are somehow right. Even so, we might initially get upset at first, but we need to learn, if we haven’t already, to let our being upset pass in a short amount of time. If we don’t, we allow the upset-ness to take root, and in taking root, we lose control of ourselves. It could be too that we could find ourselves in the future doing the very same thing, or something similar, that we are upset with the person about. It’s not that we are perfect and everyone else isn’t, as we so often like to believe. That’s just not the case no matter how much we are convinced. It’s like the Apostle John has told us, “If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us” (1 John 1:10, ESV).
It can be easier said than done to let an offense pass, whatever it is. Again, a good way to do this is to use the Giving Up Control method that I have outlined in our study here. When we observe our negative thoughts, not biting the hook and reacting to them, but rather just observing them in our minds, we can gain victory as the thoughts will disappear in not reacting to them. This is important for us. It is necessary for us to have good self-control of our minds, and true self-control is had by Giving Up Control. When we surrender our intense feelings to react to certain thoughts, we find that we can gain more and more victory over those thoughts, that they pass, that they leave us alone, and then we can move on. We don’t give any opportunity to the devil. We don’t put ourselves in a place where a stronghold can set foot in our minds, a place where we then have to spend a great deal of time surrendering because we allowed a series of thoughts to get out of control. We allowed those thoughts to grow and flourish inside our minds, like ivy growing rapidly up a tree, and now it’s going to take some time to put that off and it get rid of it.
Moving on. James chapter 5, and verse 10: “As an example of suffering and patience, brothers and sisters, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.”
Suffering may be happening for us, it may not be. The point is that we all will, at one point or another, experience suffering. We went over this in James chapter 1, remember? James is taking us roundabout back to what he discussed at the beginning of his letter. There he called the suffering we experience ‘trials.’ His example for reference is the prophets from the Old Testament which would have been familiar to his Jewish readers and listeners, and should be familiar to us—those of us who are familiar with the Scriptures. And not only does James point us in that direction, but he also goes to the most extreme example that lies back there. And that, of course, is the story, or we could say, the historical account of the man named Job.
If we can recall that story, and really it’s quite a long book, quite a long discourse, we remember that God was the one who put Job to the test. We often don’t like to think about that. But it was the same in the New Testament with Jesus. Matthew recorded for us: “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil (Matthew 4:1, ESV). We are also instructed to pray on a daily basis the Lord’s Prayer. And there, we find the same thing—“And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” or we could say “the evil one” (Matthew 6:13, ESV). These are some uncomfortable things. We know that God led Job to be tempted by Satan. He did the same for Jesus. What does that mean? Surely he wouldn’t do that for us, right? Well, I’d have to say that I think it falls in line that he may lead us into temptation also. But the good news is that Jesus has instructed us to pray not to be led into temptation.
The point is that God allowed Satan to do everything he could to Job, except actually take his life. Satan was even allowed to take the lives of his family members. Job lost his family, that is, his children, not his wife, though. He lost his homes, his servants, his animals, and probably even more possessions. Then after all this, he lost his health, and then, his friends turned against him. So, yes, this is about the most extreme example we can find in the Bible of human suffering. James cuts to the chase. This seems to bring up the point that I introduced at the beginning of our study here. That is, “All that matters is God.” That phrase certainly fits in well here. It’s the only way that Job could survive his ordeal. This is because if Job had valued all the other things too much, then he would have really lost. He would have really lost because there would have been things that were of a permanent loss, and what I mean is an unrecoverable loss. But because all that mattered was God, Satan really, at the end of the day, couldn’t do anything to Job that would make him truly lose.
This is a hard teaching. But it is what I have been saying all along. The lower a person is the levels of consciousness, the harder it is to bear. The higher a person is, the greater the understanding of God and how things work, so the greater the endurance we will see. For some encouragement, let’s consider some positive points in the midst of this. Number one, note that Satan was the one who caused the destruction, not God. That’s important because the enemy can often try to get us to point the finger at God. We say, “God could have prevented this, and he didn’t. So, he is at fault.” But, remember, God is on our side. He’s not a perverted Father, as his often taught, and he doesn’t want to see us suffer. Number two, God hadn’t cut off Job. He hadn’t gone anywhere. He may have been quiet for a while, but he was there watching the whole thing. Number three is that after the whole thing was over, God restored everything Job had lost, and restored it many times over (I know, I’m jumping ahead here).
But this is where some people get lost, on this last point, and say, “That’s not always true. God doesn’t always restore what a person loses. Some people just get screwed.” They say, “What about a person who is murdered. How does he or she get back what was lost. What about their family members; it is a permanent loss.” Well, that’s really not true. Yes, unfortunately, the lower we are on the consciousness levels the more our response is going to sound like this. The more we haven’t Given Up Control, the more we haven’t surrendered, the more our response will be in this manner. If a person transcends based upon murder, and enters Jesus’ presence and their new home of living is in Heaven—if that happens, the person, from their perspective, really hasn’t lost anything, have they? We, who are still back here on the earth, have in that now we have to wait a while perhaps to see them again. But, they and we will see each other again, we will be reunited, at some point in the future. There is temporary loss of enjoying our time with that individual, but it’s not permanent loss. And, if we are surrendered, we can find enjoyment again, we can find happiness again, without their presence because “All that matters is God.”
It’s interesting. The night before I was writing this, I was visiting my Dad and we were watching one of the over-the-air channels that my older brother operates. Jason, my older brother, anchors community reports during the commercial breaks, and we were watching to see his report. Nonetheless, the program we were watching while we were waiting was about a woman in Ireland who was raped and murdered and her two young children were also murdered with her on one Christmas Eve going into Christmas Day. And it was a heart sickening story. The investigators were working through the details, and they eventually figured out who the killer was. Anyway, it was one of those stories that stays with you, and it didn’t easily depart my thoughts, at least, at first. The next morning I found myself thinking about it after doing my devotional time. I said to God, “Father, I just don’t understand this.” And then the thoughts came to mind about ‘what now?’ Where were the people now? Assuming the woman knew God, she was with him. And the children, they were with him. They ended up having Christmas, just not here. And if their family was surrendered, and it appeared to some degree they were, they were able to move on, and keep the good memories of their loved ones in mind.
As James concludes for us today (reading it again), “Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.” Yes, it rings true. Steadfastness is our goal. No matter what happens to us, or to those we love, this is our goal. True commitment to the Lord. Notice the contrast between God and Satan. James says God is compassionate and merciful. Quite a contrast. This is because God, again, isn’t the one who is causing the harm. That is Satan. God is on the other end. He is wanting to help us, to heal us. What is compassionate? Compassionate means benevolent, charitable, sympathetic, pitying, humane, tender, kindhearted, all heart. Let’s define merciful: forgiving, gracious, lenient, easygoing, gentle, forbearing, generous, softhearted, and mild. Yes, these are the characteristics of our loving Heavenly Father.
God is on our side, no matter what. He is now, and he always will be. Let’s read a verse from Jesus to finish. This verse goes for Satan, for his demons, and for anyone else who would wish us harm: “Don’t be afraid of people, who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul. The only one you should fear is the one who can destroy the soul and the body in hell” (Matthew, 10:28, NCV). It is God who saves us, and really no other being on the face of this earth can do anything to us that will ultimately, permanently destroy us, or destroy our relationships.
- Daniel Litton
Today’s Acknowledgements:
Joyce Meyer
Scripture quoted (NCV) is from The Youth Bible, New Century Version, copyright © 1991 by Word Publishing, Dallas, Texas 75039. Used by permission.
Today we are continuing along in James chapter 5. We are winding things down here, as are coming around the curve to the final stretch. We have this week, and then next week will be our conclusion. If you recall, last week James talked about the ‘rich’ as he called them out for not treating people fairly. And we went over that section in detail, again, touching on things we want in our lives, and things we obtain and keep. I think it was a pretty interesting discussion, and if you missed it, you’re going to want to go back and listen.
Now, we come to verse 7 of James chapter 5. James is going to discuss the coming of Jesus back to the earth for the second time, which is always an interesting and encouraging discussion. So, reading verse 7 and 8: “Be patient, therefore, brothers and sisters, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.” (ESV)
We who believe in Jesus Christ know that he is going to come back again—really, technically speaking—he is going to come back twice more. He’s already been to the earth once, and that was to teach, guide, and pay our sin-debts in full so that we are no longer seen as guilty in front of God for our sins. It’s a tremendous thing. We all know, if we examine ourselves, that we’ve done wrong. We’ve done wrong in small ways and even big ways, and the only solution to cover that is through the blood of Jesus Christ. That’s the way God sees it. Anyway, Jesus is going to come again, first, at the Rapture of the Church. He will descend from Heaven into the sky of the earth, and those who have a personal relationship with him will fly up into the sky themselves to meet him there, and at the same time, receive their new, resurrection bodies. This is where we become truly complete. This is where we lose the sin-nature.
After the Rapture of the Church, we know that the Tribulation period begins, and this is where the antichrist, the leader of the one world government, emerges and takes reign. At that time will come the judgements from God—the Seals, the Trumpets, and the Bowl Judgments. Remember those? This is what the Book of the Revelation tells us. And it will be a tremendous time of pain for the inhabitants of the earth. This is when, of course, God has shifted his focus from bestowing grace on individuals and instead shifts his focus to providing judgment for unrepentant sin. Ignoring sin just doesn’t work now, and it certainly won’t be ignored then by God. People can try to pretend like they don’t sin, but God is watching and keeping count. He knows everything that everyone does, whether they know him or not. Because he is holy and cannot have anything unholy around him in his new universe, he’s going to deal, at that time, with anything that offends.
But James has instructed believers in Jesus to “Be patient.” Why patience? Being patient means we must be excited and looking forward for something to happen. Remember, patience is one of the ultimate character traits we are striving for in our lives; it is a characteristic of the Level Four Christian. According to James, what are we looking forward to? Well, I’ll go ahead and answer this question from my own perspective. I am looking forward, first, to being physically with Jesus, having our relationship come into complete manifestation, seeing him in person, one on one. Second, I am looking forward to getting rid of my sin-nature, no longer having to watch myself lest I sin, or trying to ward off sinful habits. Thirdly, I’ll get my new body. I will look the best I’ve looked, and have supernatural abilities at the same time. I’ll probably be able to fly, walk on water, and even teleport. It will be pretty cool. We’ll all be like superheroes we see in movies and on T.V. Finally, four, I’ll get to be with a lot of people who love me as I love them; some of whom I know from the earth, and many more that I have never met before—those I don’t know about and those perhaps that I do know about from past times.
So, all these benefits I’ve just discussed, and I’m sure you could name more, are the reasons, after we think about it, that we need to “Be patient.” Thinking about these great things can really stir up our emotions and excitement level so that we want these things sooner than later. I notice when thinking about them deeply that I lose sight of even thinking about earthly things. And this is the point. This is what the Apostle Paul instructed the Colossians to do. He said, “[S]eek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth” (1b-2, ESV). When we really stop and think about these things, we are keeping this instruction from Paul. These are great things. They can encourage us even when things aren’t going so well in our lives. We can think about these things, and thus lift ourselves out of any depressing thoughts by realizing what is really important.
James gives us the example of the farmer. Let’s read it again, “See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains.“ I think it’s safe to say that the earth is currently experiencing “the late rains.” I mean, after all, we are closer to Jesus’ return then we have ever been, right? That’s just the truth of the matter. And the way things are going, what we are seeing going on in our world, especially in Israel, and perhaps the increasing of sin, shows us that we are closer. Perhaps, it could happen anytime. I think it could. It’s a good thing for us to keep that in mind as we go about our lives. This is because we don’t want to become too attached to this earth in that we would find ourselves bothered if in fact we did hear Jesus’ voice in a moment from the sky, telling us to “Come up here.” We don’t want to hesitate. We don’t want to stop and think, “Wait, I’m not ready to go.”
This leads James to say, “You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.” Notice that the call from James to us is to make sure that we are ready to go. We do that by establishing our hearts. What does establish mean? We could say establish means to erect, build, station, ring in, organize, practice, or settle. The point is that we come to a conclusion, we come to a settlement, a place in our hearts where we are firmly established in the Lord so that we are then ready if he in fact he does come in our lifetimes. This begets true freedom for us, as Christians, and allows us to live within the Law of Liberty in our lives, actually making truly good choices for ourselves. Besides, even if Jesus doesn’t return in our lifetimes, this is still a good practice due to the fact that we don’t know when our number will be called, and we then transcend this life. We want to actually transcend, to rise above, and not descend, or go up with our heads hanging in shame or disappointment. That’s no fun. We don’t want Jesus to feel ashamed to receive us. We don’t want him to have negative emotions about our coming because we weren’t ready.
Next, we read, “Do not grumble against one another, brothers and sisters, so that you may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing at the door.” There is a great cross-reference verse here, and I want to consider it. This is from Paul’s letter to the Philippians, when he said, “Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world” (Philippians 2:14-15, ESV). So, this action of not grumbling from both James and Paul shows that we are a people in God acting in a way that is supposed to show better behavior than others—those who don’t reverence God. Our interactions with each other, are supposed to stand out so that those who don’t know God see that we really treat each other well. Of course, we certainly don’t always live up to this, unfortunately, but can rather, on the other hand, be even more divisive than many of those living without God.
What does it mean to grumble? We should probably define that so that we don’t find ourselves doing it. The idea behind grumble here in James, when comparing this verse here in the ESV with other Bible translations, seems to be the idea of complaining. So, we could say we are not to complain, find fault, fight, argue, scold, or reprimand another. That’s the idea here. The point is that we, as Christians, as believers in Jesus, are to be treating our fellow brothers and sisters with kindness and praise. Even when we disagree, and those times are certainly going to happen every now and then, a lot of times we are just going to have to look the other way. We are going to have to bite our tongue and move on, letting that difference of opinion go. The higher we are on our own consciousness level, the higher we’ve moved up in our own, personal character development, the easier this will be.
Notice James tells us that if we do decide to grumble against one another that we could in fact find ourselves being judged. Not by others, though, that may happen too. But the idea here is that we may be judged by God himself, by Jesus. We are judged because, remember, he said, “Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven” (Luke 6:37, ESV). Or, a little bit later in the same passage, he said, “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,' when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye?” (Luke 6:41-42a, ESV). Notice the self-evaluation that needs to occur here. Instead of looking at and focusing on others, Jesus points us to look at ourselves.
This one is tuff. It requires us to surrender our own self-righteousness. We obviously want to think that we are right in whatever belief it is that we hold. We want to believe that the other person is totally wrong. A lot of times it is in between in that we are right, but also the other person is right. I know, that hurts. It’s just the simple truth that, due to our varying perspectives, we are not always completely right and the other person completely wrong. And besides all of this, sometimes we are not in a position to judge in the first place. We are upset with a brother or sister over something that, if we would just take a look at ourselves in the mirror, we find that we do all the time, or do something like it all the time. We are upset with others for things that we do ourselves. This really is pathetic.
Regardless, we don’t want God upset with us because we are too strong in our disagreement with another that we cannot let it go. Recall the verse that says, “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil” (Ephesians 4:26-27, ESV). Perhaps it really is true that we are somehow right. Even so, we might initially get upset at first, but we need to learn, if we haven’t already, to let our being upset pass in a short amount of time. If we don’t, we allow the upset-ness to take root, and in taking root, we lose control of ourselves. It could be too that we could find ourselves in the future doing the very same thing, or something similar, that we are upset with the person about. It’s not that we are perfect and everyone else isn’t, as we so often like to believe. That’s just not the case no matter how much we are convinced. It’s like the Apostle John has told us, “If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us” (1 John 1:10, ESV).
It can be easier said than done to let an offense pass, whatever it is. Again, a good way to do this is to use the Giving Up Control method that I have outlined in our study here. When we observe our negative thoughts, not biting the hook and reacting to them, but rather just observing them in our minds, we can gain victory as the thoughts will disappear in not reacting to them. This is important for us. It is necessary for us to have good self-control of our minds, and true self-control is had by Giving Up Control. When we surrender our intense feelings to react to certain thoughts, we find that we can gain more and more victory over those thoughts, that they pass, that they leave us alone, and then we can move on. We don’t give any opportunity to the devil. We don’t put ourselves in a place where a stronghold can set foot in our minds, a place where we then have to spend a great deal of time surrendering because we allowed a series of thoughts to get out of control. We allowed those thoughts to grow and flourish inside our minds, like ivy growing rapidly up a tree, and now it’s going to take some time to put that off and it get rid of it.
Moving on. James chapter 5, and verse 10: “As an example of suffering and patience, brothers and sisters, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.”
Suffering may be happening for us, it may not be. The point is that we all will, at one point or another, experience suffering. We went over this in James chapter 1, remember? James is taking us roundabout back to what he discussed at the beginning of his letter. There he called the suffering we experience ‘trials.’ His example for reference is the prophets from the Old Testament which would have been familiar to his Jewish readers and listeners, and should be familiar to us—those of us who are familiar with the Scriptures. And not only does James point us in that direction, but he also goes to the most extreme example that lies back there. And that, of course, is the story, or we could say, the historical account of the man named Job.
If we can recall that story, and really it’s quite a long book, quite a long discourse, we remember that God was the one who put Job to the test. We often don’t like to think about that. But it was the same in the New Testament with Jesus. Matthew recorded for us: “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil (Matthew 4:1, ESV). We are also instructed to pray on a daily basis the Lord’s Prayer. And there, we find the same thing—“And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” or we could say “the evil one” (Matthew 6:13, ESV). These are some uncomfortable things. We know that God led Job to be tempted by Satan. He did the same for Jesus. What does that mean? Surely he wouldn’t do that for us, right? Well, I’d have to say that I think it falls in line that he may lead us into temptation also. But the good news is that Jesus has instructed us to pray not to be led into temptation.
The point is that God allowed Satan to do everything he could to Job, except actually take his life. Satan was even allowed to take the lives of his family members. Job lost his family, that is, his children, not his wife, though. He lost his homes, his servants, his animals, and probably even more possessions. Then after all this, he lost his health, and then, his friends turned against him. So, yes, this is about the most extreme example we can find in the Bible of human suffering. James cuts to the chase. This seems to bring up the point that I introduced at the beginning of our study here. That is, “All that matters is God.” That phrase certainly fits in well here. It’s the only way that Job could survive his ordeal. This is because if Job had valued all the other things too much, then he would have really lost. He would have really lost because there would have been things that were of a permanent loss, and what I mean is an unrecoverable loss. But because all that mattered was God, Satan really, at the end of the day, couldn’t do anything to Job that would make him truly lose.
This is a hard teaching. But it is what I have been saying all along. The lower a person is the levels of consciousness, the harder it is to bear. The higher a person is, the greater the understanding of God and how things work, so the greater the endurance we will see. For some encouragement, let’s consider some positive points in the midst of this. Number one, note that Satan was the one who caused the destruction, not God. That’s important because the enemy can often try to get us to point the finger at God. We say, “God could have prevented this, and he didn’t. So, he is at fault.” But, remember, God is on our side. He’s not a perverted Father, as his often taught, and he doesn’t want to see us suffer. Number two, God hadn’t cut off Job. He hadn’t gone anywhere. He may have been quiet for a while, but he was there watching the whole thing. Number three is that after the whole thing was over, God restored everything Job had lost, and restored it many times over (I know, I’m jumping ahead here).
But this is where some people get lost, on this last point, and say, “That’s not always true. God doesn’t always restore what a person loses. Some people just get screwed.” They say, “What about a person who is murdered. How does he or she get back what was lost. What about their family members; it is a permanent loss.” Well, that’s really not true. Yes, unfortunately, the lower we are on the consciousness levels the more our response is going to sound like this. The more we haven’t Given Up Control, the more we haven’t surrendered, the more our response will be in this manner. If a person transcends based upon murder, and enters Jesus’ presence and their new home of living is in Heaven—if that happens, the person, from their perspective, really hasn’t lost anything, have they? We, who are still back here on the earth, have in that now we have to wait a while perhaps to see them again. But, they and we will see each other again, we will be reunited, at some point in the future. There is temporary loss of enjoying our time with that individual, but it’s not permanent loss. And, if we are surrendered, we can find enjoyment again, we can find happiness again, without their presence because “All that matters is God.”
It’s interesting. The night before I was writing this, I was visiting my Dad and we were watching one of the over-the-air channels that my older brother operates. Jason, my older brother, anchors community reports during the commercial breaks, and we were watching to see his report. Nonetheless, the program we were watching while we were waiting was about a woman in Ireland who was raped and murdered and her two young children were also murdered with her on one Christmas Eve going into Christmas Day. And it was a heart sickening story. The investigators were working through the details, and they eventually figured out who the killer was. Anyway, it was one of those stories that stays with you, and it didn’t easily depart my thoughts, at least, at first. The next morning I found myself thinking about it after doing my devotional time. I said to God, “Father, I just don’t understand this.” And then the thoughts came to mind about ‘what now?’ Where were the people now? Assuming the woman knew God, she was with him. And the children, they were with him. They ended up having Christmas, just not here. And if their family was surrendered, and it appeared to some degree they were, they were able to move on, and keep the good memories of their loved ones in mind.
As James concludes for us today (reading it again), “Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.” Yes, it rings true. Steadfastness is our goal. No matter what happens to us, or to those we love, this is our goal. True commitment to the Lord. Notice the contrast between God and Satan. James says God is compassionate and merciful. Quite a contrast. This is because God, again, isn’t the one who is causing the harm. That is Satan. God is on the other end. He is wanting to help us, to heal us. What is compassionate? Compassionate means benevolent, charitable, sympathetic, pitying, humane, tender, kindhearted, all heart. Let’s define merciful: forgiving, gracious, lenient, easygoing, gentle, forbearing, generous, softhearted, and mild. Yes, these are the characteristics of our loving Heavenly Father.
God is on our side, no matter what. He is now, and he always will be. Let’s read a verse from Jesus to finish. This verse goes for Satan, for his demons, and for anyone else who would wish us harm: “Don’t be afraid of people, who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul. The only one you should fear is the one who can destroy the soul and the body in hell” (Matthew, 10:28, NCV). It is God who saves us, and really no other being on the face of this earth can do anything to us that will ultimately, permanently destroy us, or destroy our relationships.
- Daniel Litton
Today’s Acknowledgements:
Joyce Meyer
Scripture quoted (NCV) is from The Youth Bible, New Century Version, copyright © 1991 by Word Publishing, Dallas, Texas 75039. Used by permission.