You need three important tools to explore the book of James:
- The construct of the beatitude (an accomplished blessing with an assured outcome),
- The construct of a command (spoken in the Greek imperative, but translated with the passive "let", where the omitted subject is us!),
- The parallel teachings of Christ (James listened and took on this ministry to share them).
With those tools in hand, this week we looked at:
Count it all joy, my brothers, 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.
We saw the parallel with Christ’s overwhelming conclusion to the sermon on the mount where the word Jesus used for ”perfect”, James pastorally explained with the the word “complete”.
You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
We saw the command ("let/have") to us is to surrender to the work of patience. It must be a surrender so complete that it produces joy within the trial because of the assured blessing that will follow.
How assured?
We serve the “Father of lights”, who does not change — not even his shadow.
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.
So folks, we are called to be complete. To do so you must have an eternal perspective of patience grounded in the unchanging sovereignty of God on which all joy is based.
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