Gloria Copeland — Who Is Your Enemy? Part 3

Let’s find out what God’s Word has to say in
the book of James about our troubles and shed
the light on religious tradition.

My brethren, count it all joy when
ye fall into divers temptations;
Knowing this, that the trying of your
faith worketh patience. But let patience
have her perfect work, that ye may be
perfect and entire, wanting nothing. If
any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of
God, that giveth to all men liberally, and
upbraideth not; and it shall be given
him. But let him ask in faith, nothing
wavering. For he that wavereth is like a
wave of the sea driven with the wind
and tossed. For let not that man think
that he shall receive any thing of the
Lord. A double minded man is unstable
in all his ways. (James 1:2-8)

Notice that James 1:3 says that the trying of
your faith works patience. It does not say that
the trying of your faith is to teach you, or that
it perfects your faith, or that it makes your
faith strong. Faith is strengthened by the Word
of God. “So then faith cometh by hearing, and
hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17). So,
the trying of your faith exercises patience.

Now, what does patience mean? The definition
of patience is not “to put up with” like
many of us think. The dictionary says that to
be patient is “to be constant, or the same way,
all the time regardless of the circumstances.”

This is the way we, as believers, must be—
patient, stable, consistent, the same way all the
time. Regardless of our circumstances, regardless
of what life throws at us, we should always
respond in exactly the same way: “Thus saith the
Word of God!” When we respond this way, we
take on the same attribute as Jesus—the same
yesterday, today and forever. This is the reason
Jesus is always the same—He never varies to the
right or to the left from the Word of God.

Kenneth Copeland Ministries