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“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for your 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.” (James 1:2-4)
Wise preparers must be steadfast. The reward of this race goes to the one who finishes strong. The Apostle James above provides us with a key to becoming steadfast and to achieving full preparation. It is by means of passing the tests of daily life with joy that we come to steadfastness. And it is by persistent steadfastness that we attain to complete preparation, “lacking in nothing”. It is obvious that the apostle is concerned about eternal preparation, not merely the storing up of supplies against future difficulties. But without question, the same rule applies. Joyful endurance of hardships now is the best preparation for whatever may come in the future.
Christians, above all other men, ought to be wise preparers. Our faith focusses us upon a grand reward and calls upon us to achieve it by patient endurance and joyful persistence. These same virtues will make for a wise and perfect preparer.
This Day in Church History
April 13, 585 AD – Martyrdom of Hermenegild of Spain – Hermengild was the son of the Visigoth king of Spain, Leovigild. The Visigoths were a barbarian tribe that had driven the Romans out of most of what is now Spain and Portugal. The Visigoths had embraced the Arian heresy, the error which denied that Jesus Christ was God in the flesh. Arians insisted that Jesus was a created being. Hermenegild was converted to the catholic and orthodox faith and after years of faithful resistance against the errors and persecution of his father, the king, he was finally martyred by his father’s soldiers. His ardent testimony is credited with the defeat of Arianism in Visigothic Spain.
