My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.
Yes. Our full acceptance of any trial, considering such as nothing but joy is the precursor to maturity with endurance given to get there. What is happening here is a testing of our faith. That might seem arbitrary and even unnecessary, but we can gather from other scripture passages and from life that it is quite necessary.
Faith is tested in order that it may be refined, grow, and become established so that we not only have it, but that, so to speak, it fully has us, that we are confirmed in it. It’s not like we’re ever going to completely arrive in this life in any matter, including this, so that we want to keep applying this, indeed we’ll need to, and to keep moving to more and more of this maturity. But we will in a certain sense indeed enter into something of a complete maturity, if we accept this testing, and endure it, and allow that endurance to have its full effect on us.
We need to take every word here seriously, and seek to apply it. A good challenge for us, and above all, a good opportunity. In and through Jesus.
Jesus community 