When Faith Feels Like Fire

When life doesn’t ask for permission and the hit still lands, what do you write in your ledger—despair or joy? Join us as we walk through James 1 and name the reality we all feel: trials show up in different sizes and colors, often when we don’t expect them. Instead of pretending pain is pleasant, we practice a new reflex—counting it all joy—because of what we know God produces through pressure: endurance, maturity, and a steadier trust.

We unpack the “ledger” mindset, an intentional way to add joy to the side of the page that hardship tries to fill with fear. From Peter’s late-night collapse to Job’s startling praise, we explore why faith becomes faith only when it’s tested. You’ll hear why endurance is more than stubbornness; it’s the shaping of character that turns bitterness into better. We make space for the honest first response—anger, sadness, confusion—and then show how to move toward celebration without faking it.

When the why and how feel foggy, we ask God for wisdom, confident he gives generously and without reproach. That wisdom isn’t trivia; it’s the next faithful step. Best of all, we hold on to a promise that reframes everything: manifold trials are met by manifold grace. For every unique hardship, there is a matching grace—provision, presence, patience, courage—tailored to sustain you. We even learn to bless God for subtraction, trusting that pruning can protect and prepare.

Listen to be equipped with practical reframes, grounded Scripture, and a hopeful way of walking through fire without losing heart. If this encouraged you, share it with a friend who needs strength, subscribe for more messages like this, and leave a review to help others find the show.

Chapters

• 0:00 Faith In The Fire
• 3:07 Expect Trials, Not If But When
• 8:40 Diverse Trials And The Joseph Parallel
• 12:17 The Ledger: Choosing Joy Intentionally
• 18:32 Joy That Defies Feelings And Storms
• 22:06 Tested Faith And Peter’s Denial
• 27:06 Endurance: From Bitter To Better
• 31:02 Pressure Makes Diamonds, Pearls, And Trees
• 35:03 Wisdom For Trials Given Generously
• 40:22 Manifold Trials Meet Manifold Grace
• 44:32 Celebrate Subtraction And Trust God

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 1:54

Commenting at first number two, culminating at first number five. Consider it all for my brethren. When you encounter trials of knowing that the top thing of your face produces endurance. And that endurance has a perfect result. You may be perfect and complete of a lacking of nothing. But if any of you lacks wisdom, the mask of God who gives to all generously and without reproach. And it will be given to him. If you read that amen. Faith when it feels like fire. Faith when it feels like fire. The book of James is an interesting book because it's not like all the other letters we have in the New Testament. James is the most practical of all of them. And James is really written so that your faith is seen and evidenced by others. James writes so that what you believe is seen in how you live. But he's writing to a particular group that he calls those scattered abroad, the dispersion, and it's evident that they're going through some stuff. And so in chapter number one, verse number two, he says, consider it all joy when you fall into diverse temptations. And a lot could be said just from that first verse. The fact that he says, When you fall into diverse temptations allows us to know that it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when something happens to you. I wish I had an amen right there because hopefully you've lived long enough to realize that life does not ask you permission to happen to you. You don't always anticipate what's going to happen, when it's going to happen, how it's going to happen, but you should be alive long enough to know it's going to happen. I don't know what it is, but whatever it is, it will happen. Some of us, for some of us, it will happen tomorrow. For some of us, it happened yesterday. For some of us, it's going to happen later in the week, later in the month, later in the year. But feel sure in knowing you're going to go through some stuff. He says, consider it all joy when you encounter or fall into. Have you ever ended up in a situation where you did not go looking for it, but it found you? Oh, I wish I had a church. I've been in situations. I woke up, I started my day, I was in a good mood, and then somehow it just happened. I didn't ask for it, I didn't go looking for it, but it found me. And I'm saying it because it changes. On Friday, it was the vehicle. On Saturday, it was food. On Tuesday, it was the devil. On last week, it was my wife. But be sure that whatever it is, if you're a child of God, it's coming for you. It what that also lets me know is we need to change our posture from asking, Why me? You're not special. It does not happen to you because you're you, it happens to you because that is how life is set up. So we should not be saying, Why me, Lord? Why this? Why now? Because James literally allows us to know that we will encounter, we will fall into diverse or various testings and trials. He also calls it diverse, various, or manifold trials. It's one Greek word, polycos, and it's the word that was used in the Old Testament to describe Joseph's quote given to him by his dad. Now, if you read Joseph's story like me, I believe this is Genesis 37 and verse number two, it would tell you that he's loved by his daddy so much that his daddy gives him a multicolored tunic or quote. Multicolored is the word polycos that James is now using to say diverse, manifold, or various temptations. I'm only smiling because there's good news in this, but let me give you the bad news first. Trials have different colors, different shapes, different sizes. They're like shoes. And they seem to come not in the same shape, in the same form, or in the same color all the time. So tomorrow you may get a small test, but Friday might be a big test. They're differently colored, they're various, they're they're multitudinous, they're diverse. So you read this verse, and before you get the good news, what you hear is it's a matter of when I fall into many temptations, and these temptations are many fold, they're very colored, they're diverse. So I'm sure trouble is on its way. So, so so if you're taking notes, here's point number one. If you did not just come out of a trial, you're going into one. If you haven't met one yet, it's on its way. Sometimes living could feel like one big test of endurance, of perseverance, and it could just feel like you're in the fire constantly. That's how life feels like sometimes. And James begins by saying, consider. I actually prefer the King James here. King James says, count, it's all joy. I'll tell you why I prefer the King James. The word that James used in the original language in the Greek is an accounting word. So he literally says, grab a ledger, and to this ledger, I need you to add joy on the positive side when trials come and add difficulties on the negative side. All right, come here, come here, come here. Picture a ledger. If you don't know what a ledger is, get a sheet of paper, put a line in the middle. On the left, put positive, on the right, put negative. Now you have a ledger. Here's what happens because life does not ask you for permission, negative stuff enters your ledger automatically. Come here, church. Someone calls you a bad name, does a bad thing for you that goes on your ledger automatically. You did not ask for it, it just happened. If you woke up and your car refused to start, that just goes on your ledger automatically. If you forgot to set your clock forward an hour, you would have come to church an hour earlier. Praise God. But you would realize that now you have to wait an hour for everybody else. That just happens to you automatically. When you hit a buck because it jumped out into the road, you didn't ask for it, it just happened. Here's the thing: because life happens, don't miss this. You need to be intentional about how you see it. Because life just happens, I need to be intentional. Because it's easy for me to be caught up in what happens and feel as a result of what happens. So because this happens, it affects my mood. So I'm now sad, I'm now angry, I'm now peeved, I'm now ticked off as a result of the negative, as a result of the trials, as a result of the testings that occur in my life. Sometimes it's just automatic. What James is saying here is you need to be an accountant that deliberately and intentionally modify your ledger. Your ledger here is your thinking, your mind, and your emotions. When something negative happens, I need to be deliberately looking at when life happens and adds something on the negative side of my ledger to say I'm going to write something positive. It takes a special disposition to encounter difficulty and find something good in it. It's easy to complain, it's easy to groom, it's easy to give in to the negativity. It's much harder to find something positive in the midst of trials. Does that make sense, Church? It's easy for you to feel overwhelmed and then just feel overwhelmed, and then feel sad and depressed because you're overwhelmed, and then feel upset with yourself because you're sad about being overwhelmed, and now you're in this rabbit hole of negative feelings, but it takes a lot of energy and intentionality to say, in spite of how negative the situation is, in spite of how it wants me to feel, I'm going to be joyous. Don't read this as something simple. James has to be drunk on the spirit. Amen. Not the spirits. Because it's only by work of the spirit could something negative happen to you. Could you be in the midst of a storm, in the midst of temptation, trials, and testing, and be able to say, God is so good. That's not your immediate you're coming inside here, tell the truth and shame the devil. That's not your immediate response when negativity happens to you. Let me say that's not my immediate response. My immediate response when trials before me is not, God is so good. I have to deliberately say in the midst of my trials that even though this is, God is so good. I have to tell myself I need to count it, I need to add it to my lecture. That's what James is saying. Thankfully, he doesn't simply say have a good attitude when trials befall you. He doesn't simply say rejoice. That's what joy means here. Celebrate. I should pause. He says celebrate when life happens negatively. Consider it, and that's why some Bibles say consider. Because while the original word says count and it's an accounting term, he wants you to have a disposition where you think about your circumstances as a means for celebration. Now we know how to celebrate. We celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, we celebrate home runs. Um we celebrate our sports team winning. We know how to celebrate. But all of our celebrations are tied to some good positive thing. He's saying that I need you to also celebrate when bad stuff happens. What that means is I'm in a constant state of celebration. Whether it's good, it's bad, or indifferent, I'm celebrating. You sound mad. Think about it. Just when things are good, he's celebrating. That makes sense. When things are bad, he's still celebrating. That doesn't really make sense. When he's not sure whether it's good or bad, he's still celebrating. That does not make sense in our natural world. We've gotten accustomed to reading scripture and knowing of particular stories that no longer have the same impact on us. Let me give you one such story. There's a man who grew up in the land of us by the name of Job. Scripture says he was righteous and blameless and upright, a man who feared God and eschewed or shunned evil. In one day, he lost all of his servants, all of his children, all of his animals. And when the news came to him, his first response was joy. Come here. He said, Naked I came out of my mother's womb, and naked I will return. The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. Blessed. Praise belongs to God still. James was saying, whether it's good or it's bad, whether he give or he allows it to be taken away, I will still bless God. It doesn't matter what's happening to me on today, if God is still alive, if God is still on the throne, I will bless God in the good, I will bless him in the bad. Because even though my circumstances change, God is still the same. Oh, you're missing. See, my confidence is not in what's happening around me, my confidence is in who's with me. And so, regardless of what's happening around me, if I look up and God is still seated on his throne, then I no longer worry about what's happening around me as long as things are still altogether up in heavenly places. Okay, okay, let me give let me let me show you how James says this. Consider it all joy when you fall into diverse temptations, knowing that word knowing is important. The reason why you consider it joy is because of what you know, and what you know is connected to what God has told you. Watch this. Knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. If you have King James cross out patience, write endurance. The testing of your faith produces endurance, and I don't want to assume that you know this, so let me say it so that you get it. James is implying that when life happens to you, you know it's a test. Okay, James is saying when the doctor calls and it's not good news, that you know it's a test. James is saying, when something happens that you were not expecting, you you recognize that it's a test. When when life throws a curveball at you, you recognize that this is a test. It's a test, and it's not just any test, it's a test of your faith. Let me tell you why it's a test of faith. It's easy for you to say when it happens to somebody else, if it were me, I wouldn't do that. I would act differently. It's easy. True faith is faith when it's tested. Until, unless, and except it's been tested, it's not proven to be true. So when life happens, it's a test to see whether the faith you claim is the faith you have. You're looking at me funny. There's a guy called Peter, and Jesus was speaking to Peter and his friends, eleven of them. You may know them. We call them the twelve apostles. Jesus is talking to Peter and his friends, and he tells Peter that I'm going back to Jerusalem, and when I go, the Romans and the Jews, they're going to arrest me, and they're going to put me to death. And Jesus says, This is going to trouble many of you, and you won't be able to bear it. And Peter jumps up and he says, Not me, Lord. Them, yeah, but me, I will never leave you, I will never forsake you. If you are on the cross, I'll be right next to you. That's what he said. He said, If they will, who's the they? His friends. He said, They would abandon you, but I would never do such a crime, I would never do such an atrocity, I will never betray you. And Jesus looks at me and says, Peter, Peter, Peter, the devil has requested to sift you like wheat. And so, before the cock crows three times, you will betray me. Peter said, Never me. And sure enough, when Jesus was arrested, everyone fled. He was observing from afar, but he was no longer right next to Jesus. That's where he said he was going to be, but he wasn't. And then comes his test. Because you said, Peter, that when it comes to Jesus being arrested, you'll be right there with him. So here comes his test. Someone recognizes him and says, Are you not one of the persons who've been with Jesus? He's like, Me? No, mm-mm. I have a twin somewhere because it's not me. And he does this three times. And then he hears the rooster crow. And scripture tells you is at this moment that Jesus turns around and he sees Peter and Peter sees him. And Peter is now filled with grief and remorse. Because the one thing he said he would never do is the thing he ended up doing. Faith is not faith until it's tested. Does that make sense now? And so life happens to us as a means of testing our faith. So consider it all joy when you fall into diverse temptations, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. When your faith is tested, and you're able to demonstrate that regardless of what happens in and around you, your trust is in the Lord, it builds in you what James calls endurance. Endurance here is not just the wear it all or the metal to withstand trials and testings. It's also the growth of your faith, it's also the maturity of your character, it's also building a recognition inside of you that this test did not kill you, but it made you better. There are some of us who were supposed to learn from our past experiences, but our past experiences didn't produce endurance inside of us, it produced it bitterness, it produced bitterness. So I'm here to tell you that when you're tested, it's not to make you bitter, it's designed to make you better. So we don't always recognize that the reason the first marriage failed wasn't for you to be bitter with your ex-wife, it was for you to learn something from it. Well, got real now. You all get quiet. The reason why the pregnancy didn't go the way it was supposed to, the reason why friendships are being challenged and tested, the reason why there's difficulty on the job is not to produce bitterness inside of you, but it's all designed to make you better. And that better is you realizing that regardless of what happens to me, God is still working in me, with me, through me, and for me. So yes, this didn't work, but God is still at work. Yes, then this did not go the way I thought it was going to, or the way I wanted it to, but it still fulfilled whatever plan God is working out in me. It's producing endurance, and then James says, let endurance have her perfect work in you, allow what you're experiencing to teach you how to be more trusting of God, how to live life in full dependency of His grace. Let endurance have its perfect work. Inside of you that you may be entire lacking nothing. What I realize after reading James is that nothing good comes without difficulty. Ladies love diamonds and pearls. But before a diamond can be a diamond, it's an ugly rock. And it must go through fire and purging and stress to become this beautiful gem. A pull starts off as an irritation in a clam. A grain of sand is lodged somewhere it's not supposed to be. And that irritation causes the clam to work and produce something that calms the irritation. And so a pull is nothing more than the endurance of a clam to not be irritated. That's good. Even our babies don't come without pressure and pain. So after a baby is born, of course it's a beauty, but it came through a process of pain, of pressure, of struggle. A tree starts off as a seed planted in the earth that has to endure the pressure of gravity and force its way out of its shell and through the soil. It's through pressure that a tree, a plant, a shoot emerges. Life is so orchestrated that we also are refined when pressure happens. And pressure comes in the form of trials and tests. What that means then is there's no trial that God allows to happen to you that was meant to kill you. That was meant to defeat you. I want you to hear this well, church. If God allowed it, it wasn't for your downfall. It was so that you could be better by it. So James says, I need you now to rethink how you think about life when it happens to you. And don't just allow it to add negativity on one side of the ledger. You also add reasons to celebrate on the other side of the ledger. Yes, this happened to me, but I'm still alive, I still have breath. Yes, this happened to me, but God is still seated on the throne. Yes, this occurred in my life. It didn't take me out, it didn't kill me. You could find reasons to celebrate. So James says, be intentional about it. But I love verse number five. So after he says all of that, verse number five, he says, But if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God. I didn't always recognize that verse five is connected to everything he said in verse two and verse number three. He said, consider it all joy. Verse two, consider it all joy when you fall into diverse temptations, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance, and let endurance have her perfect work in you, that you may be entire. Some of you look at me funny. Sorry, I'm seeing the words in the air. I'm seeing it in front of me, that you may be entire lacking nothing, but that's where verse 5 starts. So this is what you should do. But James recognizes that in the midst of all that, we may not understand why it's happening or how we should respond. You don't always know why what happened happened. And you don't always know what to do when it happens. What is the next fateful thing to do when life happens to you, when trials befall you? What is the thing God would have me to do? James says, well, if you don't know, ask. But if any of you lack wisdom, wisdom here is not just I'm lacking, I don't know two plus two is four. No, he's not talking about worldly wisdom. He says if you're lacking wisdom, you're lacking clarity, you're lacking understanding about why you're experiencing what you're experiencing and what God would have you to do in such a situation, he says, ask of God. But I like his description of God, he describes God here as a God who gives generously and without reproach. I like those two things because that's not always us. Let me tell you a story. I remember buying a gift for one of my nephews, and in a couple months he rendered the gift inoperable and useless, and so he requested me to buy the gift again, being mere mortal and having finite resources. My first response was to reproach him for not fully appreciating and using the first gift in its intended way, I did get him the gift again, but it did not come without reproach first, and it wasn't generously given the second time. The second time it came with a warning that should the fate that occurred to the first gift happen to the second one, you will expect no gifts. That's how most of us act, that's how we're accustomed to living. That somehow, if you squandered or misused something that was given to you by someone else, you half expect them to reproach you if you are to come to them to ask for it again. Even in school, I have a professor who, when you tell him you don't understand something he just explained, he does not generously offer a new explanation. This new explanation comes with reproach first. The reproach sounds like, Well, I don't understand why you don't understand. This is simple, you should get this, and then he gives. And if you're receiving the same thing, it may come with some reproach. So now hear James say God is not going to treat you with reproach, and he's not going to give you what you need conditionally, because he understands. So I ask, and even though I ask more than once, even though I struggle when I'm asking, I could count on God to give me what I need at the time that I need it without reproach and to give it generously. So here's how you should face all of your testings with grace. With grace, knowing that this will not be the end of me. This will not kill me, this will not master me. On the other hand, even though this is happening to me, God is still enabling me with what I need to get through this. And I need to intentionally add that to my ledger. Let me end with something that I found really interesting. James, as I told you, described the trials that we fall into as polychosts, various, many kind, manifold, diverse. Peter in 1 Peter 4 10 speaks of the grace of God as polycosts, manifold, various, diverse, and that made me celebrate because on the one hand, I have polycost trials, diverse, manifold trials, but on the other hand, I have polycost grace, manifold, diverse, various grace. And if I was back home, I was expecting the church to be shouting already. But let me help you at least say amen. It means that God has enough grace of every kind for whatever trial you're facing. So it doesn't matter what has happened to you, God has not just enough grace, but varied grace, diverse grace, particular grace for you right now in this situation. So we can all be going through various testings, but counter joy because we're all recipients of God's various grace that will sustain us, that will enable us, and that will equip us to make it through whatever you're going through. If there ever was a reason to rejoice, here's one because God has enough grace for where you are and what you're going through, and my God can supply all your needs according to his riches in Christ Jesus. Let's hold sign, let's hold sand, don't sing it, let's just stand. James is a reminder. Yes, we are. James is a reminder. James is a reminder that life happens. Life happens. And and I'm here to tell you life happens, and don't be alarmed that life happens. Be expecting it. And then when it does, be ready to celebrate the goodness of God in advance, to celebrate your belief and your trust of God in advance. Before He works you through the storm, before he works you through the trials, you should already be celebrating the Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. But that's only when you recognize that even when he takes away, it's not punishment, it's grace. Don't just thank him for adding, also be able to thank him for subtracting. And while you may not understand why he subtracts now, if you believe that God is good, then he subtracted for a good reason. If I believe that God is for me and not against me, even when life seems to be against me, I know who my God is and I'm confident in it. So I'm counting it all joy. Here's the response we're going to sing. And if you've been struggling with your testing, you've been doing everything else but considering it joy. If you think about trying to be joyous in your testings right now and you're struggling, I want to pray with you and for you. Meet me at the front. I'll pray with you and for you. So that even as you go through what you're going through now, you could confidently say, I've got joy and I've got some peace because God's grace is still with me in this. Would you do that now while we sing?