The Purpose in the Pressure

Host (0:01): Wake up. It's time to kick start your day. You are listening to Scripture Link's daily dose of inspiration. Let's go.

Speaker 1 (0:13): Good morning, and welcome to this brand new day. This description links daily dose of inspiration for Thursday, 04/16/2026. And today is national wear your PJs to work day. I don't know. Are PJs still a thing?

Unknown Speaker (0:34): You know, I think in the old shows, I like watching the classic TV shows, and everyone always had PJs, but I don't think it's a thing anymore. I don't know. If it is, wear your PJs to work today. I don't think we get away with that in the warehouse I work in, though. It also is National Eggs Benedict Day.

Speaker 1 (0:54): And you know the McDonald's Egg McMuffin is a play on the classic Eggs Benedict. I like them both, so either one is fine with me. Our scripture reading today is Mark chapter five and six. Mark chapter five and six. And today, this very episode marks the two thousand five hundredth episode of the daily dose of inspiration.

Unknown Speaker (1:20): And, of course, we've been doing this for, what, thirteen, fourteen years now. And so I'm thankful to to those that have listened over the years, and I thank the Lord that we've given we've gotten to 2,500 episodes, and I hope there's 2,500 more episodes to go. And we'll see how the lord directs there. And so, anyway, thank you, and and hopefully, we'll well, I mean, let's just move on. Today, I wanna talk a little bit on the subject of trials because, you know, we live in a fallen world.

Unknown Speaker (1:59): We live in a world that is hurting. We live in a world that is is doing everything it can to try to separate itself from its creator. And, you know, just when you think that evil can't get any worse in this world, you turn on the news and find out it can. And for those of us going through trials, you know, it seems like we're it seems like we're we're getting hit on every side, and and many of many people abandon their faith in the midst of trials. So today we're gonna look at at James chapter one, and we're also gonna look at Psalm one one forty one.

Speaker 1 (2:51): And we're gonna see some important things to help us stand up when we're going through the pressure of trials. And if we look here in James chapter one is where we're gonna start. We can see here what the purpose of trials are because if we understand what the purpose of trials are, then that's gonna make it easier to help us to go through the trials. Because, you know, a lot of times we we look at trials as nothing more than a time of trouble. None of us want trouble in our lives.

Speaker 1 (3:24): Many of us, myself included, go through great steps to make sure trouble don't get in our lives. And we gotta make sure we understand why these trials are happening. That way, we won't abandon the trials. We won't get away from it. We won't abandon our faith.

Speaker 1 (3:43): James chapter one verses two through four says, my brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into diverse temptations or trials is what he's talking about. 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. What's the purpose of trials? Well, first off, when trials come our way, James says we should count it all joy. I've never met anybody that was joyful at the time of trial, myself included.

Speaker 1 (4:23): None of us are. It's not in our nature. We don't wanna go through trouble. We don't want times of pain. But James is telling us the exact opposite.

Speaker 1 (4:33): Count it all joy. Why? There must be a reason. The reason is in verse three, knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. Another word you could stick in there for patience is steadfastness, unmovable.

Speaker 1 (4:56): I wanna get to a point in my relationship with the Lord that my faith is steadfast, that my faith is unmovable, that my faith is not gonna be wavering like the seas of, like the waves of the sea, like we see farther down here. We're not going down to verses five seven, but those verses are basically saying that if your faith is wavering, you shouldn't accept anything or you shouldn't expect anything of the Lord, any answers, any wisdom, anything, because your faith isn't steadfast. And we need to have a steadfast faith in the Lord because, you know, I've I've mentioned numerous times on here that that there's many Christians today that is trying to straddle the fence and have one foot in the church and one foot in the world, and and that's wavering. And that's that's not having a steadfast faith. We need to have a steadfast faith in the lord, and and we need to be developing that.

Speaker 1 (5:58): And the only way to develop that is is to go through the times of trial. You know, at your job, when you first started your job, you probably weren't the fastest at your job. You probably weren't the best at your job because you were new at it. You didn't understand the job. You needed to learn the job.

Speaker 1 (6:19): And that's the way it is with our faith, with building our faith and walking in the Lord is is we need to to we need to develop that walk. We need to just like at your job, the more times you do your job, the better you get at it. And as we as we start growing in our faith, the more times we read the bible, the more we're gonna have a hunger for the bible. The more times we pray, we're gonna get better at our prayers, giving more targeted prayers, learning how to pray the way god wants. And and all that growth happens because of trials that make our faith steadfast.

Speaker 1 (7:02): And then in verse four, he says, but let patience have a perfect work that you may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. We need to allow that steadfastness to have its work in our lives so that we can grow and become the person God wants us to be, and so we can have everything that we need to walk in the paths that God has for us and to be and to be wanting nothing, to be perfect and entire. I like the sound of those words. So knowing that that trials are a good thing for our life and that the purpose is for us to grow and become strong, believers, how should my conduct be? If you're going through a time of trial today, Psalm one forty one gives us some practical advice to about the conduct we should be having.

Unknown Speaker (8:00): Because let let's face it. Let's face it. Like I said before, none of us consider it a joyful time to go through trials. And we may walk around with a frown on our face. We may walk around with a chip on our shoulder.

Speaker 1 (8:15): We may be ready to explode at the the first person who doesn't give us what we want. And that's not what the image that we need to project. It's not what we should be doing. Let's look at Psalm 141. We're gonna look at verses one through four, and then I'm gonna jump down and look at verses eight through nine.

Speaker 1 (8:39): So let's get into it here. Lord, I cry unto thee. Make haste onto me. Give ear to my voice when I cry onto thee. Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense, and in the lifting up of my hands as in the evening sacrifice.

Speaker 1 (9:00): Set a watch, o lord, before my mouth. Keep the door of my lips. Incline not my heart to any evil thing to practice wicked works with men that work iniquity, and let me not eat of their dainties. Now down to verse eight. But mine eyes are unto thee, God, the Lord.

Speaker 1 (9:22): In thee is my trust. Leave not my soul destitute. Keep me from the snare which they have laid for me in the grins of the workers of iniquity. Let's break it down, verses one and two, our proper conduct and trial. Verse one and two talks about prayer and praise.

Speaker 1 (9:43): Prayer should be at the very top of our conduct when we're going through trials, praying, asking God for for wisdom, asking God for strength, asking God why it is you're going through that, what what it is he wants you to learn. And the writer here the writer here, David, he says, I cry unto thee. Give ear to my voice. In other words, God, I'm crying unto you. Hear my prayers.

Speaker 1 (10:12): Let my prayer be before thee as incense. In his day, they had the old testament sacrificial system, and part of the the temple, they they would burn incense on the altar as as a fragrant aroma, as a pleasing aroma. And David's saying, Lord, let my prayer be pleasing and and and and be pleasing to you as the evening, as the the incense is. And he says, let my praise. That's what is implied implied here.

Speaker 1 (10:46): By the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice, we need to praise God. You know, just like the more times you do your job, the better you get. The more times you go through trials, the more you understand and the more that you could praise God in those trials. That you could praise him because he's doing a work in your life. While we don't enjoy going through times and trials, we do need to praise him for those because he's shaping us and molding us and trimming off the pieces that don't need to be there that's hindering our growth.

Speaker 1 (11:22): So proper conduct on the try on under trials involves prayer and praise. Look at verse three. He says, set a watch, o lord, before my mouth. Keep the door of my lips. We need to watch our speech during times of trial.

Speaker 1 (11:42): You know, it's easy for us to go off on somebody to to give someone a piece of our mind as we say, to go off and let the obscenity start flying out of our mouth, to to even curse God. Remember back in the book of Job, when he lost everything right down to his health, his wife said, Drew, why don't you just curse God and die? And I know going through times and trials, sometimes we feel that way. We should just curse God and get the heck out of this relationship, but that's not what we need to do. David says, set a watch, o lord, before my mouth and keep the door of my lips.

Speaker 1 (12:23): What David is saying is make sure my speech doesn't doesn't do damage. Make sure my speech still reflects on you and on my relationship with you. Verse number four, he's talking about direction. We need to be keep watching our direction. He says in verse four, incline not my heart to any evil thing to practice wicked works with the men that work iniquity.

Speaker 1 (12:57): Let me not eat of their dainties. Dainties there is luxurious foods. It symbolizes temptation. It symbolizes deceiving. And David there is saying, Lord, don't let my heart start desiring the things that the wicked people do, the practices of the wicked, and those that work iniquity.

Speaker 1 (13:23): Let me not desire their their things. Let me not desire their lifestyle. Let me not desire their their way of living. Let me not fall into that. You know, it's easy for us to abandon our faith when times of trouble come in.

Speaker 1 (13:44): You know, it makes me think of of and and we've been talking a lot about this lately. It makes me think of the Israelites back there in Numbers chapter 21, I believe it is, where they were wandering around the wilderness, and they started saying, you know, we remember the leeks and the garlic and the good food that we had back there in Egypt, but, oh, all we got is this manna that God's feeding us here. They were missing the blessing. They were desiring the old ways and missing the blessing. And when we're going through times of trouble, when we're going through times of trials, sometimes we start desiring the old life because we look at it and say, well, I don't remember going through times of trouble when I was in my old life.

Speaker 1 (14:28): So then we start desiring those old things again. And David says, don't let that happen to me. He says in verse nine, keep me from the snare which they have laid for me and the grims of the workers of iniquity. That snare is the desire to go back to the old ways. Israel remembered the good food that they had, but they forgot the brutal whip of slavery.

Speaker 1 (14:54): They remembered the good food, but they forgot the brutal work that they had to do. They forgot about crying out to God to be saved from that. And we gotta make sure that we keep we watch our our direction. And verse eight gives us our last one. Verse eight, but mine eyes are unto thee, o lord or o god the lord.

Speaker 1 (15:19): In thee is my trust. Leave not my soul destitute. David is saying my eyes are on you, my eyes are focused on you, my trust is on you. Don't leave me destitute, Don't leave me unfinished. My eyes are on you.

Speaker 1 (15:40): We have to keep our focus and our focus is on Jesus and the work that he has called us to do. So friends, how are you gonna respond when trials come your way? We need to remember the purpose so that we could develop a steadfast, unmovable faith, And we need to make sure when those times of trials come that we pray and we praise God, that we we ask him to protect our speech, that we ask him to to watch our direction, to keep us on the path that we're supposed to be on, and we need to keep our focus on him and the things that he's called us to do. Think about that as you go through this day, and remember, get into God's word and allow God's word to get into you and share that word with someone today. Have a blessed day and I told you it's our twenty five hundredth episode.

Speaker 1 (16:42): You can listen to all 2,500 episodes by visiting our website www.scriptionlinks.org. Have a blessed day.

Unknown Speaker (16:52): Another conversation in heaven. Wow. This place is really nice. I wish I would have brought my camera. You must be new here.

Unknown Speaker (17:02): And am I glad to be here. Hi. I'm Bob. I'm Bartholomew. So what was it like serving our Lord during your day?

Unknown Speaker (17:08): Oh, it was tough. People really frowned on you if you talked about Jesus. Really? Oh, yeah. Guys laughed at me if I said grace at lunch.

Unknown Speaker (17:17): Oh, that's unfortunate. You're telling me, and I really got ridiculed for bringing a Bible to work. You held the scriptures in your hands? Well, in my day, they put a Bible in every motel room. God's word was that common, and still his followers were persecuted.

Unknown Speaker (17:31): Oh, yeah. I really got thrown to the lions. They still use lions in your day?

Speaker 3 (17:36): God has given us blessings and freedoms unheard of in previous generations. Many Christians have paid dearly for their faith. How much has your faith cost you lately? Another message from Lifeline Productions located on the web at lifelinepro.com.