GET EQUIPPED
ANNOUNCING OUR FIRST STUDY OF 2025 -- STARTING JANUARY 6.
“Don’t run from tests and hardships, brothers and sisters. As difficult as they are, you will ultimately find joy in them; if you embrace them, your faith owill blossom under pressure and teach you true patience as you endure. And true patience brought on by endurance will equip you to complete the long journey and cross the finish line—mature, complete, and wanting nothing.” (James 1:4, VOICE)
Perhaps right now you have a long list of unsolvable problems, and the pressure of unexpected challenges has you ready to meltdown. On top of “everything” we are responsible for, sometimes we end up having to figure out how to persevere through the impossible and still manage to show up for our life. Bills have to be paid, laundry has to be folded, and our people have to be fed — even though we feel super stressed out and are struggling to keep it all together and not to explode into a million pieces.
You and I need to prepare to not just merely survive the hardships, but to move forward with a faith-filled perseverance.
The Book of James can serve as our guide as we try to figure out how to finish well even when the stressors of life seem to be spiraling out of our control. This short letter was written to encourage Christians experiencing troubles that had disrupted their ordinary lives and left them feeling out of sorts. The wisdom packed into these five chapters will show us how embracing God’s Truth equips us to live with a Christ-like endurance:
1 - Equipped to respond with patient endurance in the midst of our problematic seasons
2 - Equipped to set aside what the world values and stand for God’s Truth
3 - Equipped to speak with godly wisdom in an ungodly world
4 - Equipped to act as a peacemaker during a conflict
5 - Equipped to pray with confidence for seemingly impossible situations
Let’s spend 20 days reading through James together and equip ourselves with the faith-filled perseverance we need for the journey ahead in 2025. Our study starts January 6.
“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.”
James 1:4 MSG