Hello! Faith Under Pressue...

James is an amazing book in the Bible. It's actually probably one of my favorites. My friend put it best “there is so much meat, you could literally go verse by verse.” I totally agree. From the greeting until the farewell this amazing book of the Bible says so much to us as believer in Christ Jesus our Lord, how to live authentic lives. I don’t know about you but that is the kind of life I want; an authentic one.

In the very beginning on James 1:1 I love how James introduces Himself. “I, James, am a slave of God and the Master Jesus” (Message). He knows who he is. He knows his identity in Christ. He is a slave/servant of Christ. Man, that alone I could run with. We need to know who we are in Christ. We need to not just know but truly believe that we are servants of Christ. James knew to whom he was writing, he has a purpose in what he was about to say. Oh course, the Bible is God’s Word, He used people to write it down but it is inspired by God. So these are God’s Words, written to us through His servant James. We should never take create for God’s work. Always give God the glory.

I love how in the message is says at the end of the greeting, “Hello! Faith Under Pressure.” Is that not how we feel sometimes? Faith Under Pressure. Stuart Hall said it best “when you are working out, and trying to build muscle what do you do? You add weight. There has to be some tension, something to build that muscle. We have to get under that weight, to build that faith muscle.” That is the picture I see hear. Hello, Faith Under Pressure. God wants to do something amazing, and the reason there is this tension is God is building your faith muscle.

Have you ever seen the P90X commercials? Well I have, and I have given in and am about to start the P90X program. But what I like is how the program works, and the same way we build muscle physically is how we build muscle spiritually. The secret behind the P90X system is an advanced training technique called Muscle Confusion, which accelerates the results process by constantly introducing new moves and routines so your body never plateaus, and you never get bored. Well if that doesn’t describe my how I feel sometimes in my faith then I don’t know what does. Beth Moore also said something one time that absolutely blew me away, and God used what she said to change how I was looking at a situation. “To the degree It’s been hard, its going to be 100% fold good. God requires so much of us at times so that we can experience the unmatched exhilaration of partnering in divine triumph.” “It may seem like you are waiting forever on something, but in that waiting God is building muscle in you, so that when you get what He has for you, you can hold on to it.”

“Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don't try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way. If you don't know what you're doing, pray to the Father. He loves to help. You'll get his help, and won't be condescended to when you ask for it. Ask boldly, believingly, without a second thought. People who "worry their prayers" are like wind-whipped waves. Don't think you're going to get anything from the Master that way, adrift at sea, keeping all your options open.” James 1:2-8 (Message)