HE IS LORD

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                    JESUS IS THE LORD

    James 1:2 My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers
temptations;   Knowing [this], that the trying of your faith worketh
patience. 	

    God looks at things differently than we do.  He is looking from His
VANTAGE POINT, which includes the ability to see the end of a matter from
before the beginning of it.

    He is infinitely LOVING toward us, and most, if not all, of the
situations we come into have been precisely designed to accomplish a desired
goal in our lives.  By the Spirit, James penned the words of encouragement--
to count it ALL JOY (pure, unadulterated joy) when we come into unsavory
situations (testing places).

    I am intrigued by the term "trying of your faith", when I looked at the
original language in which it was written.  The word, according to Robert
Young's Analytical Concordance, is DOCIMION.  It is the nown form of the word
which James uses a little farther down in this chapter (DOKIMOS-- "tried."

    James 1:12 Blessed [is] the man that ENDURETH temptation: for when he is
TRIED, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to
them that love him. 

    We get our modern word "Documented" from that Greek word.  The "diverse
temptations" are the means of DOCUMENTING (proving the validity of) our faith
in God's Lordship in our lives.

    Abraham's complete trust in, and obedience to, the Lordship of El Shaddai
was what took him and his son Isaac to the top of Moriah, where he bound
Isaac on the altar.

    It was there, while Abraham had the knife over his head, ready to slay
Isaac that the Lord spoke the words, "NOW I KNOW."  Genesis 22:12 And he
said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him:
for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son,
thine only [son] from me. 

    This incident was taking place 42 years after Abram first started to
follow God from Ur of the Chaldees.  Faith is not always documented over
night.

    How long have you been "on the wheel of the Potter?"  

    How many painful situations do you look back on and can now see the Hand
of God in them, terrible as they were at the time?

    There is nothing that takes God by surprise.  There are NO ACCIDENTS in
the life of a Christian.  The much-maligned devil can not touch you or me
WITHOUT PERMISSION FROM GOD.

    He (the devil) can do no more than what he has been given permission to
do.

    Count it ALL joy, PURE joy, 100% joy, UNADULTERATED joy.  God is busy in
your life.  He is performing a "surgery" in your life, to help you correct a
problem area there.