James 1:3, For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.
Trials and difficulties test our faith by allowing us to experience our true beliefs. This testing is for our benefit, not God’s, as God already knows how we will respond, but we don’t. Therefore, trials create the opportunity for our deepest beliefs, and our strongest passions to come to the surface and be revealed for all to see. It is trials that allow us to see if what lives in our hearts is genuinely of God, or, if it is of our flesh. Only then, can we honestly evaluate our faith. Only through trials, are we able to see if faith in Jesus Christ has truly won victory over our fleshly heart desires.
When trials have shown us the true condition of our faith, then the Lord is able to strengthen us, and we will understand why. This is why James says that we are to count it all joy… when you meet trials of various kinds (James 1:2). Every Christian should rejoice when our Lord allows us to accurately see what lives within our own hearts. James further explains this by saying that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. Steadfastness is “joyful endurance.”
You see, faith is not about avoiding problems but trusting God through the problems. This is what it means to hope in God. Each challenge is an opportunity to deepen our dependence upon God and for us to grow our expectation for God to grow joyful endurance within us.
When the apostle Paul declared that we are justified, declared innocent, with God being at peace with us, he continued to explain our Christian hope. Romans 5:2 gives the explanation, through him (Jesus) we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Believers in Jesus Christ can experience and radiate the glory of God, which is the multilayered goodness of Holy God. This is the believer’s hope, to express God’s glory on earth, knowing that when we are in His heavenly presence, we will continue to display God’s glory for all eternity.
This is how Yahweh revealed Himself to Moses in Exodus 33:18-19. Then Moses said, “I pray You, show me Your glory!” And He said, “I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of Yahweh before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will show compassion on whom I will show compassion” (LSB).
Faith fills believers with hope that during our short time on earth, we shall experience and declare God’s glory, especially by joyfully enduring through times of trial. This enduring expression of faith puts God’s goodness on display and fills the believer with joy for having this gracious privilege. But it needs to be emphasised that the joy of this heavenly privilege is experienced through faith in Jesus Christ, as Paul explained in Romans 5:2.
Romans 15:13, May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing (faith), so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.
Amen
