A New Year

At the end of December, I was looking for a devotional to kick start my day.  I spend a bit of time through out the day in the Word.  Plus as part of my devotional time, I am making Bible Art.  I kept seeing God nudge me in the direction of James.  But I have studied that a lot and wanted to do something different.  I looked at the Christian bookstore, and Bible study apps, online etc and I just was not finding what I was wanting.  So earlier this week as I was working on my morning devos – searching thru a couple of apps, God again nudge me to James.  So I decided to look….  Wow God knew what I was needing!!!  I have had a bad migraine this week, so I have not been able to do it as much as I like – sometimes it hurts too much to read or think.  This is a summary of what I learned this week.

1 James, a servanta] of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion: Greetings. Count it all joy, my brothers,b] when you meet trials of various kinds,for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

vs 1 I did not want to overlook the 1st verse, even if it is a greeting.  It was a good reminder that I AM a servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ.  I have been praying a lot about a certain ministry I have been doing for a long while, whether it was time to give it up.  But God said “No”, He still wants me to keep on keeping on.  But sometimes we get bogged down in the day to day issues.  I was reminded the day before that we need to be Authentic Ambassadors – sharing the Gospel ourselves, doing the work….

vs 2 Wow this verse was great for that day.  I woke up to 2 messages of people having problems – that I needed to take care of.   I was thinking of quitting the ministry.  I was grumbling….  Then God gently reminded me to “Count it all joy”… even the bad things, the complaining from others etc.  Sometimes this IS hard – but what the next verses say are so important.

vs 3 The testing of your faith produces steadfastness.  What is steadfastness?  To be FIRM in your faith, unwavering, firmly established, firmly fixed in the direction.  Wow – so the testing of our faith is beneficial for us.  It is making us stronger in our faith!  

vs 4 This is the result – so we may be perfect and comlete, lacking nothing.  God is not allowing the trials to shame us, to put us down etc – He WANTS us to be perfect.  He KNOWS that it will make us stronger!  GOD IS GOOD!!! 

I pray that these verses will encourage you!  

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1 thought on “A New Year

  1. Great, great, encouragement. We all need to be reminded of being servants and the joy!! Thank you for sharing!

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