it has value in our lives...

problems are purposeful.  they have a purpose.  pain can be productive.  pressure produces.  suffering can accomplish something.  it has value in our lives.  what value? 

for one - problems purify my faith. 

james 1.3a (niv), you know that the testing of your faith…   he uses the word testing as in testing gold and silver.  you would heat it up very hot until the impurities – the dross – was burned off.  job said, he has tested me through the refining fire and i have come out as pure gold.  the first things trials do is test our faith.  they purify us.

CHRISTians are like tea bags.  you don’t know what’s inside of them until you drop them in hot water and then you know.  your faith develops when you don’t feel like doing what’s right.  it purifies your faith.  CHRISTians are like steel; when they’re tested they come out stronger.

another one - problems fortify our patience.

verse 3b (niv), the testing of your faith develops perseverance.  he’s talking about staying power.  not a passive patience but staying power, endurance.  the ability to keep on, keeping on, the ability to hang in there.  the greek here is literally “the ability to stay under pressure.” 

we don’t like pressure and we do everything we can to avoid it.  we run from it, take drugs, gamble, drink alcohol, go to disneyland, anything to get away from pressure but GOD uses problems in our lives to teach us how to handle pressure, how to never give up.

how does GOD teach us patience?  by everything going your way?  no.  GOD teaches you patience in traffic jams, in grocery lines, the waiting periods in life. 

we live in a comfort and convenient society.  everybody wants it now.  if i can’t have it now, forget it.  endurance today, is a rare quality.  lombardi said, “when the going gets tough, the tough get going.”

just a thought from the front porch…