The Devotional - 1016 - Persevering in the Wisdom of God

The Devotional – 1016 – Persevering in the Wisdom of God

One of the difficult things we do in life is wait; can you not agree? It seems that patience or waiting for something or someone is as difficult as climbing a mountain. There seems to be rocks and sheer walls all around and there are only a few foot holds that are not easy to reach. Frustration is the enemy of the soul and a tormentor of the heart, how then can we expect to have peace? My wife and I discuss these things often and the answers to maintaining a patient and a confident composure are not found in emotional revolts within our heart. These are powder kegs of destruction, not for the people who watch us explode, but for our personal health and peace. Solomon discusses this matter in Ecclesiastes 2:17-26, but does he provide the answer? Well yes, but one has to seriously study the entire book of Ecclesiastes! Have you the time to do so? Well yes you do, as in, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His Righteousness and all these things will be added unto you.” Matthew 6:33 KJV,

Comments and Challenges:

James 5:7-12

Last time we saw oppression on the national and world-wide level, but what about oppression on the personal level. Day by day and with each passing moment in time the opportunity to “grumble and complain” seems to leap out and be a destroyer of our testimony and our countenance. Many of our days are ruined by our emotions. How do we stop this? Well the answer is not one that we easily get on board with, but it is the only answer.

“Establish your heart, for the coming of the LORD is at HAND”. This statement by James (5:8b) is a word or two that seems unreasonable in the heat of an emotional moment in time, however if the LORD is at hand (and He is) while our heart is revolting; then the fruit of our labor of love is seen by Him as unproductive (sour grapes) since we did not wait patiently for God who is at Hand and ready to work out a good result. 

The way I see this is that a believer in Jesus Christ has His Righteousness to reveal in oppressive moments, but no; we would rather look like the unbeliever and revolt, thus the fruit of patience is not seen when the deeds of impatience are present; James (5:9). Do not “grumble” the literal translation is “groan” also the statement by James is a command. Why is that? Grumbling and groaning over the oppression of things in our personal life is the sin of judging. 

James use the events in Job’s life to demonstrate the results of endurance. If you read JOB you might note that the scripture says that Job had “three friends” and he did, he even kept his friendship intact; yet each of them expressed to Job that he was full of sin and that Job was suffering the consequences of his sin with the disease that had over taken his body. 

Not that Job had plenty of opportunity to grumble and complain over their misguided judgment of Job’s condition, and he did; yet I believe that if you read Job, you might see that he did not complain or grumble at them specifically. His complain was too the LORD, thus maintaining friendship with his friends. Even so, the LORD answered Job in (38:1) out of the whirlwind of turmoil in Job’s life with: “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? The bottom line… all such grumbling and complaining to people or even to God is without the mindset that the LORD is at Hand and He will do the judging.