Perseverance in James

This is sometimes such an understatement.

 James 5:11 says, "As you know, we count blessed those who persevere. You've heard of the perseverance of Job. And seeing what the Lord brought about, the Lord is full of compassion and mercy.

As we look at this, in the context of Job’s entire story, there are things to note. Of course, God does not give a reason to Job for why everything happened. He doesn't explain anything. Job is left, at least, with this question: "Why?" Why did all this take place? When God said, "Can you answer these questions first?" And, of course, Job couldn't. This indicates that Job doesn't have the capability to understand the answer. 

So, despite that, Job persevered. He kept holding on to God. He questioned God, yes. He wondered what was happening and was asking if God had failed him, and wanted answers. He still held on to the Lord. Comments like, "in the last days, in my flesh, I will see God," and “my flesh will be destroyed,” this is not somebody who's expecting to be delivered. This is someone who's expecting to die horribly. Yet, has faith that God will raise him someday. 

And yet, at the end, God restores. Why? because God is full of compassion and mercy.

God didn't have to, but He did.

God showed compassion and mercy. We see that throughout the Bible. God promises to show compassion, show mercy, and reward those who are faithful.

Now, we know from Scripture and from what Jesus said that in this life, we may not have that reward. But this passage is not talking about receiving rewards in this life; we talk about what the prophets did. They persevered, but most of them died horribly. On the other side, this passage states that for those who are unfaithful, those who have stored up for themselves shall gain horrid things; they shall be judged (we see that beginning of chapter five). This is not always here and now, but it will come. 

Those who are faithful to God, those who persevere in the midst of suffering, in the midst of being faithful and yet not seeing great rewards like the prophets, those who persevere against those who treat them wrongly, and those who suffer like Job, will be rewarded by God. Some people say we shouldn't think about a reward because Jesus himself is a reward, and he is. God doesn't have to give us anything else, but it is very clear in Scripture that God is going to give us more. He's going to reward us in a way that we could never imagine. God restored to Job twice what he lost. God promised in the Bible that he would restore to Israel the things that they lost. And here we see God is promising through James that he will reward us if we just persevere.

Judgment day for the Christian isn't just about avoiding the bad consequences because we were forgiven. It's going to be about reward. Why? Because we deserve it, because we're great people. No. Because God is merciful. We're called. Part of our job is to be faithful, to persevere. We don't, we aren't earned a reward. But God's going to give it to us one, anyway. That's a wonderful God. I'm glad I serve him.