Persevering through trials to become mature & complete

The Making of our Choices and Persevering in Choosing what is right involves a PROCESS.

The PROCESS involved in persevering toward being Mature & Complete

1. Draw Close to God

James 4: 8 - 10

James 4: 8 - 10
Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify

your hearts, you doubleminded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.

Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

2. Submit to God & Resist the Devil

James 4: 7

James 4: 7
Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

3. Look Intently into the Word of God & do what it says

James 1: 22 - 25

James 1: 22 - 25
Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.

Those who listen to the word but do not do what it says are like people who look at their faces in a mirror and, after looking

at themselves, go away and immediately forget what they look like. But those who look intently into the perfect law

that gives freedom, and continue in itnot forgetting what they have heard, but doing itthey will be blessed in what they do.

4. Practice the religion God accepts

James 1: 26 - 27

James 1: 26 - 27
Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues

deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this:

to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

5. Be Patient through sufferings

James 1: 7 - 11

James 1: 7 - 11
Those who doubt should not think they will receive anything from the Lord; they are double-minded

and unstable in all they do. Believers in humble circumstances ought to take pride in their high position.

But the rich should take pride in their humiliationsince they will pass away like a wild flower.

For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant; its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed.

In the same way, the rich will fade away even while they go about their business.

6. Ask God earnestly for anything you lack without any wrong motives or doubt

James 1: 5 - 7
If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding

fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like

a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. Those who doubt should not think they will receive anything from the Lord

James 4: 3
When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

James 5: 16 - 18
Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.

The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. Elijah was a human being, even as we are.

He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years.

Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.

Conclusion: James 1: 12
Blessed are those who persevere under trial, because when they have stood the test,

they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.