Latest / Beliefs, Ballots, And BullDawgs / Thursday May 21, 2026
Transcript
- Greg: Good morning and what's up everybody. It's Thursday, May 21st, 2026. I'm your host, Greg Miller, and this is Beliefs, Ballots and Bets. Today's theme is ⁓ holding strong, holding fast, so to speak, perseverance that produces character. The ⁓ scripture verse of the day is from the book of James, chapter one, verses two through four. Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds. because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking in anything. This is ⁓ kind of a good follow-up to yesterday's, and it's asking us to kind of reshape and reframe our perspective when going through challenges. James is telling believers here to adopt a faith-shaped perspective when you face difficulties. And rather than responding with despair or complaint in troublesome times, consider it joy. And this is counterintuitive, but consider it joy because trials have a purpose. They test and they reveal the reality and the strength of your faith. And through that testing, your faith is going to be continually strengthened into a more patient and endurance faith. And if you let that endurance run its full course over time, it will produce a ⁓ spiritual maturity and wholeness that will open you up to being far more fulfilled. If we unpack this verse kind of line by line, it's, you know, we talk about the oddest part to me is considering it pure joy, and it's just counterintuitive to consider any sort of troublesome or tribulating time joy. But this isn't a call to fake it till you make it, so to speak. It's not a call for for fake or false cheerfulness, but it's not asking you to treat suffering as fun. The term joy here is based more on a deep trust-based confidence that God is working towards the good even when it doesn't feel good, even when circumstances are painful. So this is an outlook rooted in faith, not emotion. And when you take that perspective to realize that the outcome of whatever you're going through will likely be good, then it's easy to find that joy, even though you're not enjoying that moment. When we break it down, facing trials of many kinds, and this is something we're all very familiar with in our modern society, things come at us from all different directions. The term trials in the Greek, it covers a wide range of pressures and losses and temptations and persecutions and illnesses and disappointment. And James here is recognizing that your suffering, your tribulations may be frequent and varied. You never know what this world's gonna throw at you. When he's calling us to, it says, because you know that the testing of your faith provides perseverance or produces perseverance, I think it says, and this is simple, as iron sharpens iron, so to speak, testing proves whether your faith is genuine. The process of being tested, will refine and strengthen your faith so that it can endure things down the road. The steady and patient perseverance that keeps going when others give up is what these tests are trying to teach us to be able to do. And then when it says, know, let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. This is, you don't get to bail out early. You gotta finish the task. You know, an artist doesn't stop the sculpture halfway through. You've got to, you've got to allow perseverance to run its course. The goal here is, a spiritual maturity and a level of integrity that, you won't achieve otherwise. It is ⁓ a faith without, a faith without perseverance has not been tested and will not be able to stand the test when that day comes. The goal, like you said, the goal is a spiritual maturity. It's, it's the goal is a faith. that is whole and resilient and able to face the future trials without collapsing. And in order to do that, sometimes you have to go through some tests along the way. know, it's the perspective here that's so powerful. It's teaching us that tests are not necessarily punishment. James is not teaching us that God causes all painful moments as a retribution, but rather God can use these trials to accomplish growth. ⁓ Life's brokenness and moral test and oftentimes comes from from a fallen world not from his divine willing But he will use those those tribulations coming from a fallen world to your benefit if you allow it if you stay true to the faith and if you stand strong It's remember it uses the word joy and it's not meaning to enjoy It's simply meaning rather to to rejoice in the trial because you're trusting God's wisdom and purpose even in the midst of pain. You're not denying the pain, you're not denying the hurt, but you're refusing to have that feeling of despair, that feeling of hopelessness because you know God's up to something. Perseverance is active and communal. Endurance doesn't come from passivity. It's not something that you just acquire. It's driven by sustained and faithful living. And those things are supported by your daily habits. You're getting into the Bible, you're saying your prayers and being involved in church. The end goal here is to embrace spiritual formation, not just survival during these hard times. The purpose of the trial is not to make life harder for its own sake, but rather to shape your Christ-like character and to help you achieve a level of spiritual maturity that you otherwise would not. So just kind of remember as we... as we go through difficult times, and it is almost assured, we all will, just refrain these difficulties as opportunities for growth and ask yourself, like we talked about on yesterday's show, what is this moment, what is God trying to teach me? Maybe he's trying to teach me about something about myself. Maybe he's trying to teach me something about somebody close to me or something along those lines. We have to resist the harmful theology and what has become very current and very modern in our world today is this happier, holier-than-thou mentality that once you accept Christ, nothing goes wrong, everything is right. We've got to resist that. That blames the victims and says that bad things don't happen to good people. Well, no, absolutely. Bad things do happen to be good people. We have to be honest about pain when it happens, but we have to trust God to use it and to redeem it. Getting on to the plays to the day. Been on a pretty good run. We were 2 and 2 yesterday. We've got four plays on the books today. Three baseball plays and a basketball play baseball plays are starting pretty early I we got some afternoon games Pittsburgh Pirates at the st. Louis Cardinals over the total of seven and a half We got the New York Mets minus 115 at the Washington Nationals and the Toronto Blue Jays in the New York Yankees We're going over the total of eight and then the final plays the NBA game tonight I'm gonna roll with the Cavs again Give me that plus six and a half plus seven if you can grab it at the Knicks ⁓ Nick's got out and jumped on them early last game and the Cav didn't cover. Hopefully they'll, ⁓ they'll come back and try to even the series up, ⁓ but give me the Cavs plus the points as we, as we wrap up and we get ready to log off for the day. Let's, let's go back to remember, know, James is, James is calling us in this, this passage to he's calling us to a faith that trusts God in the hardest times. realizing that trials and tests will strengthen your faith and produce a patient endurance that when completed will result in a spiritual maturity and wholeness like you've never seen before. It's something I can only recommend. Speak with Him, keep your focus on Him, and all things are possible and you will live a much more fulfilled and balanced life if you keep Him at the center of everything. As we wrap off, guys, just remember how we always close it out. Get in your Bibles, say your prayers, love one another, and tell the truth. God bless.