Until We Are Complete in Him

“Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”  - James 1:4 (NIV)

By and large, most of us are alright.  We’re pretty good overall.  But to be satisfied with that is to miss the point of what James is talking about.  Another translation says it this way, “Let your endurance be a finished product, so that you may be finished and complete, with never a defect”  (Moffat).  The differences are subtle, but I like thinking of it as endurance.  Perseverance has the connotation of putting mind over matter and pushing yourself to the end.  Endurance connotes being prepared to finish the task set before you.  Perseverance makes me feel like the coming burden is mine to bear, whereas endurance makes me feel like the burden has already been borne.  Hoping you will be able to persevere is much different than knowing you have the endurance required to finish.

So is the goal to be complete?  Perfection?  Is that actually attainable?  No, our own perseverance is not enough for us to reach full maturity.  It is important, however, to strive for perfection.  To train and build up our endurance so that when the trials come, we will be prepared.  We can’t be content with being “pretty good.”  If we become complacent, then the work will never be finished, and we will continue to be lacking, we will continue to have defects.  God knows those details and loves us enough to encourage us to let our “endurance be a finished product”, so that one day we will be mature and complete, as God intended for us to be.  God has given us gifts, and when we use them, it unleashes his beauty and glory.  We shouldn’t do things half-way, we shouldn’t give less than 100%, we shouldn’t be lazy.  ”Slovenliness is an insult to the Holy Ghost. There should be nothing slovenly, whether it be in the way we eat and drink, or in the way we worship God” (Oswald Chambers).

So how do we do that? Little by little.  Day by day.  We train and strive and seek and grow and persevere and build endurance so that when the trials come, we will be prepared.  The Olympic 100 meter sprint is not won with 10 quick seconds; it is won with years and years of training and fine-tuning.  As God shows us our defects, He does so to help us overcome them. He does so to build us up. He does so in order to finish His work in us, “so that [we] may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”