Challenging times will build up your Love, faith, and hope!
James wrote by The Holy Spirit in his Epistle, chapter 1:
2 My fellow believers, when it seems as though you are facing nothing but difficulties, see it as an invaluable opportunity to experience the greatest joy that you can!
3 For you know that when your faith is tested it stirs up in you the power of endurance.
4 And then as your endurance grows even stronger, it will release perfection into every part of your being until there is nothing missing and nothing lacking.
Difficulties are a part of life and you can either embrace them or try to run from them. As we seek FATHER’S direction, we will receive the answer to navigate through such difficulties and our response will turn into joy. Overcoming obstacles will bring us to a higher level of gratefulness in our lives. We will be stronger in our faith and realize that we can overcome those challenges placed before us to hinder our growth in THE LORD.
5 And if anyone longs to be wise, ask God for Wisdom and He will give it! He won’t see your lack of Wisdom as an opportunity to scold you over your failures, but He will overwhelm your failures with His generous grace.
Failures are meant to be learning situations promoting growth in your faith and hope.
6 Just make sure you ask empowered by confident faith without doubting that you will receive. For the ambivalent person believes one minute and doubts the next. Being undecided makes you become like the rough seas driven and tossed by the wind. You’re up one minute and tossed down the next.
7-8 When you are half-hearted and wavering it leaves you unstable. Can you really expect to receive anything from the Lord when you’re in that condition?
If you doubt that FATHER will deliver you, then you need to spend more time in THE WORD and cleanse yourself of those doubts. Your mind needs renewed so that you will truly trust FATHER’S promises to you.
9 The believer who is poor still has reasons to boast, for he has been placed on high.
10 But those who are rich should boast in how God has brought them low and humbled them, for all their earthly glory will one day fade away like a wildflower in the meadow.
11 For as the scorching heat of the sun causes the petals of the wildflower to fall off and lose its appearance of beauty, so the rich in the midst of their pursuit of wealth will wither away.
If you are “rich”, you should pursue the poor and help them in time of their need. Jesus was and is rich in all areas, yet He came and pursued the poor as well as those in need of healing. The rich young ruler did not understand this Truth.
12 If your faith remains strong, even while surrounded by life’s difficulties, you will continue to experience the untold blessings of God! True happiness comes as you pass the test with faith, and receive the victorious crown of life promised to every Lover of God!
Be strong and courageous as you face the challenges of life.
18 God was delighted to give us birth by the Truth of His infallible Word so that we would fulfill His chosen destiny for us and become the favorite ones out of all His creation!
You and I were chosen and given a destiny before HE placed us in the womb. HE wants us to fulfill that destiny but it is our choice. Choose HIM and not the world.
19 My dearest brothers and sisters, take this to heart: Be quick to listen, but slow to speak. And be slow to become angry,
20 for human anger is never a legitimate tool to promote God’s righteous purpose. 21 So this is why we abandon everything morally impure and all forms of wicked conduct. Instead, with a sensitive spirit we absorb God’s Word, which has been implanted within our nature, for the Word of Life has power to continually deliver us.
22 Don’t just listen to the Word of Truth and not respond to it, for that is the essence of self-deception. So always let his Word become like poetry written and fulfilled by your life!
Self-deception keeps us from changing. If you don’t think you have any deception whatsoever, then you are deceived. This is why we must continue to cleanse ourselves with The Word.
23 If you listen to the Word and don’t live out the message you hear, you become like the person who looks in the mirror of the Word to discover the reflection of his face in the beginning.
24 You perceive how God sees you in the mirror of the Word, but then you go out and forget your Divine origin.
25 But those who set their gaze deeply into the perfecting law of liberty are fascinated by and respond to the Truth they hear and are strengthened by It—they experience God’s blessing in all that they do!
The Truth strengthens us in facing the adversary and his minions. Jesus expressed the full Truth when tempted by partial truths. When we know The Word, we can stand on Truth and not be knocked off course by deception.
26 If someone believes they have a relationship with God but fails to guard his words then his heart is drifting away and his religion is shallow and empty.
FATHER treats Words as critically important, so should we! Say what you mean, mean what you say.
27 True spirituality that is pure in the Eyes of our Father God is to make a difference in the lives of the orphans, and widows in their troubles, and to refuse to be corrupted by the world’s values.
When you and I give to those in need, our spirituality is pure in the Eyes of FATHER and HE is pleased with our actions and commitment to others.