Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So, let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.
- James 1:2-4
In going through this verse and researching it, I came in with a whole new thought line, go ADD, I had planned to go into a long sprawling ADD influenced transition about how we must persevere through any trials and hardships to get through life, which is totally true. We all know it, life's hard, and when you make the choice to stand up and be counted, it gets harder, and yet, with the peace that passes understanding, it has an ease to it when you remember who's in charge, and I'll give you a hint, it's not you. Either or, yes, by all means do consider your hardships to be a possibility for great joy, let's face it, we don't remember normalcy, we do remember and tell tales of your escapades. You don't believe me? Ok, think about it, do you remember the times when absolutely nothing happened? Or do you remember those times when you barely got outta there by the skin of your teeth, or I can't believe that happened, it was so crazy and we laughed for hours after wards. Exactly, we remember the traumatic, humorous, tremendous moments, and in that they make us more experienced, and give us tales to tell.
Ok, now, what I re-remembered, I say it that way, because I had learned it before, but since it didn't seem important at the time, I filed it into the back files of my mind. Til now, the thought?
Jesus' brothers thought He was crazy for awhile.
Now I know that James, Jesus' half-brother thought He was crazy until after the resurrection, I always liked to picture James hanging with the others, doing the whole, 'Yeah, that's my brother, yeah, He does do alot of cool stuff, yeah... I don't know though, (and and speaking in a hushed tone while making a circular motion next to his head)...but he thinks he's the son of God... yeah... so... you do the math.' I also would have liked to be a fly on the wall to see what his reaction to seeing the proof. That is part of why I believe what I believe, why would his brother lie? It even says, 'Even Jesus' own brothers did not believe him'. John 7:5, and in that, I get it, I mean, what would you say if your sibling walked up to you and said that, and not only said it to you, but wandered around the south metro saying that. I'm betting there would be some damage control going on in your family. In the book of Mark it talks of it again, 'Jesus entered a house. Again a crowd gathered. It was so large that Jesus and his disciples were not even able to eat. His family heard about this. So they went to take charge of him. They said, "He is out of his mind."' Mark 3:20-21
So, in that, Jeusus' family thought he was a nutbag, and then he died.
Normally that's when any normal story would end, but not this one, this one, Jesus raises from the dead, and not only shows himself to people, but to His family, and His family is now so convinced that not only do they believe, but His brother James, is regarded as the founder of the modern day church by many.
For me, His family thought he was crazy, to the point where it is actually written in the bible, that they thought He was an nutbag, in a more wordy way. Yet, there came a moment where they not only stopped saying that, that they became committed to spreading Jesus teachings, beliefs, and love. 'The apostles all came together to regularly pray. The women joined them too. So did Jesus mother and his brothers.' Acts 1:12-14. Now, for me, if it was just a lie, why would they be committed not only to spread it, especially when his brothers thought he was nuts, if it was a lie, or had they seen a truth that they could not argue with any longer. Had they seen their brother, not only die, but come back from the dead. To the point where they knew the truth so much that they we willing to suffer gruesome deaths to help make sure that truth was spread. I'm just sayin'... I love each and every one of you and God does too.
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