Starting Right
Starting Right is a 5 minute Day Starter to help keep you motivated, encouraged, and focused throughout your day. DannyMac is a pastor, teacher, motivational speaker, husband, and father. His years of leading and training people have given him vast experience in helping individuals to accomplish change in their lives and meet their goals. He can help you set the course for your day by offering practical advice from God's Word in a positive and fun way. There is no better way to begin your day than by Starting Right with DannyMac.
Starting Right
Standing Firm Through Life's Challenges
How does your understanding of patience shape your faith? Join me, Danny Mac, on "Starting Right" as we unravel the profound depths of James 1:4, exploring the original Greek word "hupomeno" and its implications for perseverance and resilience. Get ready to shift your perspective on patience from passive waiting to active, steadfast endurance in the face of life's challenges. This episode promises to redefine how you perceive and practice patience, ensuring that you emerge stronger and more grounded in your beliefs.
We dive deeply into the essence of standing firm in your convictions, no matter the external pressures or internal impatience. Discover how embracing patience as "hupomeno" can transform your spiritual journey, making you perfect and complete, lacking nothing, as stated in the scripture. Through faith and endurance, unlock unexpected victories and divine purposes that lie ahead. It's time to learn how to recognize God's presence and plans, even when the storms rage or the silence feels overwhelming.
Good morning and welcome to Starting Right with Danny Mac. I'm going to be here every Monday to Friday to help you get a great five-minute start to your day, so grab your cup of coffee, sit back, relax and let me help you start your day right. I like to read the scripture and I really enjoy taking a look at some of the meaning of the Greek words that have been translated into the English, because very often those original Greek words have a much broader or deeper meaning than what we can get out of our English language. Sometimes our language is very limited, but the Greek can speak powerfully to us when we understand what it's saying, even if the words seem like they're simple and common words. So today I want to take a look at a very simple portion of Scripture that you all have heard before. It's James, chapter 1 and verse 4. And I'm going to read it to you this morning.
Speaker 1:From the King James Version, it says this but let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. Now it seems like a very straightforward verse that we need to be patient, because patience will help us to become what we need to be. But you know there's a whole lot more to that verse when we take a look at what that word patience means in the Greek language, because it explodes our understanding of what is being taught there. The Greek word that is translated into patience is the word hupomeno. It comes from two words, the word hupo and meno. Hupo means under or by, and the word meno means to stay or to abide. When you put them together, they form the word hupomeno, which is one of the strongest words in the New Testament, because it tells of a person who knows that he is in the right place. Regardless of the pressure, regardless of the assaults, regardless of the constraints that he is going through, he has decided that he will not bend, he will not bow or break under that pressure. He has decided that this is his place and nothing is going to move him from it for any reason.
Speaker 1:Sometimes, when we're talking about patience, we have a mindset that defines patience as waiting, without getting upset, until things change. I have to quietly and submissively endure what's going on around me, and that attitude is not completely wrong. In fact, up to a point it is completely accurate. And if you are going through difficult times and you are able to exhibit patience in that form. You're doing pretty good, but often, even when we are outwardly being patient, we are inwardly very impatient. We're wanting it to change in a hurry. We're wanting to get out of this and get on with what we are supposed to do.
Speaker 1:What the Greek words are telling us is that this is an attitude that has some perseverance and some endurance in it. It says I am so certain that I am in the right place that God wants me to be right now that, no matter what is happening around me and to me, god is still with me and we will break through this thing and there will be victory on the other side of it. I don't have to wait and suffer in patience. I can wait and be strong in patience, knowing that God is using this time to do something, either in me or in the people and circumstances around me. I will not let people or pressures bullying me into giving up the dream of what God has told me to do and to be. You see, when hupomeno is working in your life, it's not a question of can God still use you or is he still with you? Of course he can, but the more we learn to be strong and trust him in the midst of the storms and in the midst of the quiet times, the more that God will be able to use us in incredible ways, ways that we have not even begun to think of yet. God has plans and can use us if we are willing to stay focused on our faith, even in those quiet times.
Speaker 1:Let's go back to James 1, verse 4, and look at the last portion of that verse. It says but let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete lacking nothing. God said that if we learn to persevere, to endure, to have patience, to hold on to our faith and fully believe that God is still working, he's still using us, even when we get impatient, things aren't happening fast enough or things are coming against us. When we learn to use hupomeno, when we are confident in our relationship with Him, we are confident that he is with us, we are confident that we have nothing to worry about or to fear when we are in the midst of those difficult times and our faith does not waver in the waiting, then it says that we can be complete lacking nothing, because we know that God is always, always in control and always, always on our side, fighting and working with us and for us.
Speaker 1:When we talk about hupomeno, we're talking about faith, faith that does not let go. No matter what the circumstances are around us, we are still strong, believing and knowing that God is with us and for us. I hope you have a great day. My friends, keep the faith, keep strong, don't ever let go of it, because God is with you, he is guiding you and he loves you. Take care, we will talk again tomorrow. Thank you for joining us today and I invite you to join us every Monday to Friday, right here at Starting Right, with Danny Mac.
