Welcome to a year in the Bible with daily grace. The Bible tells one big story of

redemption and we want to spend five minutes every day journeying through the Bible from start to finish, and exploring how all of it

points to Jesus. Hi everyone welcome back to a year in the Bible with daily grace. My name is

Ali and I am one of the hosts of the podcast. Today we will be looking at chapters one through three of James.

As we begin the book of James, some things that you may want to know are first that James, the half-brother of Jesus,

is in fact the writer of this book.

He wrote the book to Jewish believers who lived outside of Jerusalem at the time.

Rather than writing to a specific church,

he wrote to a general audience,

and in its contents the book contains what is essentially James's theology, what he knows to be true of the Christian life.

We learned some things about James in earlier books of the Bible. Matthew 13 tells us that at first James

did not believe in Jesus. However, we see a transformation in the books of acts and

Galatians and we learn that he was actually considered a pillar or strong leader of the faith by the apostles.

So as we begin James chapter one he jumps right into instruction on our endurance through suffering.

He writes that indeed we will experience trials, but in those trials we should take great joy.

It probably sounded as odd then as it does now.

Joy in our trials, but why? Well, it is through suffering that the Lord

refines us and grows our faith in him. When we turn to him in our suffering, we can trust that he has not abandoned us but is working in our hearts to make us more

like Christ as he restores and redeems the broken places.

And he is with us in the struggle.

He too has endured suffering,

yet his suffering was in the greatest way and dying and agonizing death on the cross for

...