James 1:4

If any of you were at Wired last night, you heard me talk about perseverance. James lets us know here that it takes great perseverance for us to become complete as Christians. It takes a great amount of perseverance for us to finish the race. But I want to be clear here, James isn't talking about us fixing ourselves. He isn't telling us to be good boys and girls and fix ourselves. The bottom line is, only Jesus can fix us.

So what am I saying? Why do we need perseverance? Our perseverance comes in constantly striving to put ourselves in the path of God so that He can work on us.

When I was in college I ran on the cross-country team. It wasn't always fun (there was a lot of running involved). But the worst day of the year always happened in the heat of August. On this day we ran a 14 mile run. But not just a 14 mile run. We ran 7 miles straight up a mountain side and 7 miles back down (which, it is actually more painful to run down than up) in 100 degree heat. At the end of the run, however, was one of the greatest experiences of my life. A crystal clear, cool mountain lake. There was nothing better than diving into that water and getting lost for a few minutes beneath its rippling surface.

Now, we didn't run to cool off, and we couldn't cool off on our own, but we ran to get to the lake. It was only because of the perseverance of the run, the heat of the day, and the difficulty of the conditions that we were able to realize how amazing the lake really was and how much we needed it.

In the same way, we are in desperate need of Jesus, but it is only through perseverance, through running the race of this life with our hearts and minds on Jesus that we realize how much we need Him and how wonderful He really is. It's only through diving into Him that we are transformed by His love. Press on, read your bible, pray, listen for what Jesus it trying to teach you and persevere. Jesus will take care of the rest.