Devotional for Thursday, September 8, 2016“The Test of Our Faith Can Produce Peace”
by Dona Hake
James 1:3 Amplified
“Be assured that the testing of your faith through experience produces endurance leading to spiritual maturity, and inner peace.”
Yesterday we continued looking at the fruit of peace, and our ability to possess it that we are in able to sow that seed of peace. We looked at Isaiah 26:3 and Isaiah spoke that we would be kept in perfect and constant peace as our mind was stayed on Him.
Today we are going to look at what James said about peace. He speaks in chapter one that we can be assured as we pass through tests and temptations, or what we would call the experience of this life that endurance will happen as we stand strong in our faith. It will lead us to spiritual maturity and inner peace. I used to struggle when I read in James that we were to count it all joy when we would go through temptations and trials. As a young believer when I used to read this I found it very hard to understand how to be excited or joyful in the midst of a problem. As I continue to grow in my faith and strive to keep focusing on Him, the revelation of this scripture becomes more clear to me.
This is just another way to meditate upon how we can possess the seed of peace in our lives. As we walk through hardships, He promises that our faith will be rewarded. In saying that, sometimes things do not turn out the way we thought they should, but we must learn to rest and rely that our Heavenly Father knows what is best for us, and that should bring our hearts great peace.
“And let endurance have its perfect result and do a thorough work, so that you may be perfect and completely developed in your faith, lacking in nothing.”
James 1:4
As we permit that endurance to work in us perfectly as God intended it to, it will do a thorough work, and we will lack in nothing. Not only the fact is stated that we will lack in nothing but we will have everything that we need including that wonderful fruit of peace that we can continue to sow and enjoy the harvest of His righteousness in us.
“Blessed happy, spiritually prosperous, favored by God is the man who is steadfast under trial and perseveres when tempted; for when he has passed the test and been approved, he will receive the victor’s crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.”
James 1:12 Amplified