As many of you know, I will be publishing James, a book on the letter of James, in early 2016. In anticipation of that, I will be posting snippets of the book for all of you to enjoy. Here is another sneak preview:

How Can I Remain Steadfast?

We often hear something equivalent to this in Christianity: “So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter” (2 Thessalonians 2:15), but for most of us this is no easy task.

I was not born to be a naturally “steadfast” kind of person. While I always remained loyal to the commitments that I made on a certain level, I often flaked out emotionally. When the situation became negative or difficult, I would often cower away without a fight. For those of you who, like me, are not naturally persistent and tenacious in doing good, don’t give up! Be zealous for the day that God sees your steadfastness as “being perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (James 1:4). "Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us" (Romans 5:3-5).

In the analogy that Paul uses, our Christian life is a race where we must do our best to finish well. This, of course, runs parallel to what James has been conveying in these few verses. So how do we finish well if we do not know how to run? The Holy Spirit is our comforter and guide. In this race, he is our perfect coach. While many coaches use anger to motivate, the Holy Spirit approaches it from a completely different angle. He is at the same time euphorically joyful about how far we have come in our walk with Christ (even if we have only just become a Christian) and also rapturously impassioned to see us pass the finish line. As C. S. Lewis put it, “Every father is pleased at the baby’s first attempt to walk: no father would be satisfied with anything less than a firm, free, manly walk in grown-up son. In the same way, [George MacDonald] said, ‘God is easy to please, but hard to satisfy.’”

When I found this quote from John Piper in his book Future Grace, I was compelled to add it here as it does an excellent job of explaining how suffering strengthens faith:

Strange as it may seem, one of the primary purposes of being shaken by suffering is to make our faith more unshakable.

Faith is like muscle tissue: if you stress it to the limit, it gets stronger, not weaker. That’s what James means here. When your faith is threatened and tested and stretched to the breaking point, the result is greater capacity to endure.

God loves faith so much that he will test it to the breaking point so as to keep it pure and strong…

For more information on James, click here.