To Encourage You

James 5:13 “Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise.”

As James closes his letter, he continues to speak to believers who are suffering for their faith. It’s a major theme throughout the letter, for it was a huge issue for the early church. James teaches those who are under great stress that there is a purpose in all of it.  In fact, his very first words to them were as follows: “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.  And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”  He’s counseling them to keep looking to the Lord in their trials, for the Lord is in control of the hard times as much as He is in control of the good.  But James also has a word for those who aren’t suffering. He calls them the “cheerful” in the verse above.  And what’s his counsel to them?  It’s the simple sentence, “Let him sing praise.”

You see, God’s Word isn’t just something we turn to when we’re down and out. It’s not just something that we are to grasp onto when there seems nothing else can help – the last resort, as it were.  So often people treat it that way.  I’ve spoken to people over the years who have told me that “they didn’t need” the Bible or “all that religious stuff.”  Maybe it was because they had no needs that they could think of at the moment, or whatever needs they’d had in the past they’d gotten through “on their own,” or at least that’s how they may have viewed things. However, the believer is not to be like this.  We are to be those who “set (our) minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth” (Colossians 3:2).  We are to be those who see everything through a spiritual lens, even the most mundane things of life, for haven’t we been commanded, “whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31).  Even so, we can become so complacent in this. While we may often turn to the Lord in times of trial, what is our orientation when things are going well?  

It is because the Lord is well aware of our tendencies that He gives us guidance such as that from James 5 above.  We see an example of similar guidance in God’s warnings to Israel that we find in Deuteronomy 8 where He says, “Take care lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today,  lest, when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end. Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’ You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day.”  

So often Israel had cried out to God in their misery as slaves in Egypt and as nomads in the wilderness after that.  And God had, time after time, answered their cries. But in the future, when things would go well for them, He is warning them that they will tend to forget Him. And we can do the same.  So, as James tells us, “Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise.” That is, in the good times, just as well as in the bad, we should turn our thoughts to God. We should praise Him for His blessings and not just cry out to Him in our need. We should see that it is His hand that is always at work in our lives, whether in times of plenty or in need.  We should have the attitude of Paul who said, “I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.  I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:12-13). He said this because he always had a spiritual mindset. He knew that at each and every moment it was God Who was at work in His life.  He didn’t forget Him when things were going well, and He trusted Him when things were otherwise.  

May God help us to be those who are spiritually minded about everything, for God has told us that “to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace” (Romans 8:6).