January 10 Daily Devotional

Scripture for Day 10—James 1:12

¹² Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.

Devotional:

Verse 12 clearly affirms God's goal in testing the faith of his redeemed children by bringing them through various kinds of trials. It is to crown them with his supreme blessing! Through this promise, God summons you to approach life in a way to which he has called each of his children from the beginning of Genesis—to live life in hope, to approach life consciously in light of eternity, to walk with God and for God day-by-day with regard to anticipated blessing, knowing that God will reward you with good according to his glorious promises.

We in the affluent West need especially to heed this summons and embrace this promise. We are disposed to see prosperity as a blessing … as the blessing most to be desired! Bear in mind how James 1:9–10, however, brands prosperity as just as much a trial as is poverty. According to God, being rich is just as much a test of faith as being poor. Certainly, liberty and prosperity in this life are blessings. But they are temporal, passing blessings and as such they are above all tests of faith. Will your faith stand the test?

Ironically, the easier life which the temporal blessing of prosperity makes possible can actually make it an even more difficult test of faith. Indeed, Charles Spurgeon said that there is no test like prosperity! In the midst of the good things you enjoy, will you still exalt God as supreme, seeking first his kingdom and his righteousness? Or will you live life like a pagan who thinks that "you only go ‘round once" so you should "grab all the gusto you can get"? Will you devote yourself to accumulating the things of this passing world, pursuing the philosophy that "he who dies with the most toys wins"? Or will you devote all that you are and all that you have to advancing the kingdom purposes of God and thus lay up your treasures in heaven?

God encourages us to stop exaggerating our temporal blessings out of proportion and thus letting them distract us from our real chief end—to at the same time both glorify and enjoy God forever. He does so by holding before our eyes the far superior, everlasting blessing—"Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him." But to apprehend the glory of that promise, we need the wisdom that comes from above. The wisdom that comes from above opens your eyes both to the splendor of heaven and to the hollowness of earth.

Savior, if of Zion's city
I, through grace, a member am,
let the world deride or pity,
I will glory in thy Name!
Fading is the worldling's pleasure,
all his boasted pomp and show.
Solid joys and lasting treasure
none but Zion's children know. (John Newton)^†

^†Click here for the full hymn and tune.

Click here for background on the author of Are You For Real?: Meditations in the Epistle of James for Secret or Family Worship.