To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion:
Greetings. – James 1:1b

What did you think the Christian life was when you first got saved?  I don’t know specifically what I thought when I first came to Christ, but somehow, I just knew that things were going to get better in my life. Initially, I though that meant He will not allow anything bad (as I defined bad) come into  my life.  I believed then that God would protect His own from the difficulties of life if we prayed hard enough and exercised faith.  As I began to read my Bible and grow, I realized that God works in our lives not only through the good, but also through the hard times. Especially through the hard times.  In fact, He has decreed difficulties and trials as a means of bringing us to spiritual maturity.

After the Holy Spirit was poured out on the disciples in Acts 2, the apostles began to preach the gospel with courage and boldness, and as a result, many were converted and came to embrace Jesus as their Savior and Lord.  Thousands were added to the Church daily.  After Peter’s sermon on the day of Pentecost, 3,000 people were saved. Acts 2:41.  When Peter and John healed the lame man at the beautiful gate of the temple, about 5,000 men believed and came to Christ. Acts 4:4.  Within a short time, the church in Jerusalem had become a mega church without perhaps almost 20,000 people if you add women and children.

One might be tempted to ask, since God is all powerful, surely, He can take the gospel to the ends of the earth without disrupting the lives of His people? Yes, He has the power to do so, but has chosen not to. Why? Believe it or not, the scattering of these believers and all the trouble that would follow, was not just for the spreading of the gospel alone, but also for their sanctification and growth.

I have often wondered what they must thought their lives would be as new believers. Did they believe that finally all their problems would be solved?  Most of them were contemporaries of Jesus and would have seen him personally performing miracles. Now that they have come to understand and believe that He was indeed the Messiah, would miracles begin to happen in their lives and homes?  Would all their personal and political problems be finally solved? If anyone of them thought so, that was quickly shattered after the execution of Stephen in Acts 7.

Shortly after that incident, these new believers were on the run for their lives. They had to leave behind family, jobs, friends and perhaps all they had known and have been familiar with all their lives, while heading into the unknown. Is this what they thought their lives would be?  Where was God in all of this? No doubt some were leaving unsaved family members behind who must have thought they were foolish to follow Christ.

The reality is that the scattering of these believers, the leaving behind of family, friends, job, and everything they had known and had been familiar with was all in the plan of God for their lives.  God had planned that His people would take the gospel to the whole world.  Matthew 28:19, Acts 1:8.

One might be tempted to ask, since God is all powerful, surely, He can take the gospel to the ends of the earth without disrupting the lives of His people? Yes, He has the power to do so, but has chosen not to. Why? Believe it or not, the scattering of these believers and all the trouble that would follow, was not just for the spreading of the gospel alone, but also for the sanctification and growth of the believers as well.

God had ordained that as these new believers were coming to faith in Christ, they would also be going out with the gospel to the whole world. This task was ordained to be difficult by God Himself for their own good and for His glory. Even the task given to Christ to be the savior of the world was not without pain and difficulty. Why has God ordained suffering as part of our sanctification process?  The pastor of the Jerusalem church, James, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, sent a letter to these scattered believers as they experience difficult trials in their lives. That letter is the New Testament epistle of James.  What did he say to them?  I will attempt to unfold some of the lessons in that letter in the weeks ahead. 

Soli Deo Gloria!