Blessed are the Persevering
HAPPY IS THE ONE WHO UNDERSTANDS WHAT GOD IS UP TO IN THEIR TRIALS
After exhorting us to ask God for wisdom (1:5-11), James reveals the wisdom we need most in the midst of trials in 1:12-18. More than anything, we need to understand what God is and is not doing through the trials that we face. He's testing our faith and love in order to strip away lesser loves and increase our affection for him (1:12). He's not in any way tempting us after cheaper loves which take us down a path to death (1:13-15). Because everything he gives is good (1:16-17) and what God bears in us is life (1:18). By his gracious will, he's "brought us forth by the word of truth," the gospel, "that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures." Since God has already made us new, we can respond to trials as the new people that we are. Even more, since the "firstfruits" of the new creation has already begun to blossom in us, we can be confident that God will bring us into the full harvest to come - when we "receive the crown of life." As Christians, we happily persevere until that day, trusting that the end of all our trials is the blessed outcome of beholding the Lord of glory with our own two eyes.