As we close the year 2025 and step into a new year together, we do so with clear eyes and sober faith. Many of us are not coming out of ease, but out of pressure. This past year brought illness, financial strain, grief, strained relationships, and spiritual weariness. Some burdens were visible. Others were carried quietly, known only to God.

The question before us is not whether trials will come in 2026—they will. The question is whether our faith will remain merely confessed, or whether it will become obedient, enduring, and active.

That is why our theme for 2026 is: Living the Word: Faith in Action. Scripture never treats faith as a passive idea or a private feeling. Biblical faith listens, trusts, obeys, endures, and perseveres. James confronts the modern assumption that faith is proven by comfort. Instead, he teaches that faith is proven by endurance—by staying under the load long enough for God to complete His work in us.

When James commands believers to “count it all joy,” he is not minimizing pain. He is correcting perspective. Trials are not random misfortune; they are instruments in the hand of a wise God. The testing of faith produces endurance, and endurance, when allowed to finish its work, produces spiritual maturity.

Jesus Himself embodied this truth. He endured the cross for the joy set before Him. As a congregation, we are committing ourselves in 2026 to live the Word—not merely to hear it. We will study James together. We will examine our faith honestly.

May 2026 be a year where our faith is no longer theoretical, but visible—tested, obedient, and alive.

Deuteronomy 8:2–3

Moses spoke these words to Israel as they stood on the edge of the Promised Land. Before they moved forward, God required them to look back. Memory mattered. If Israel forgot the wilderness, they would misunderstand the land.

God first used the wilderness to humble His people. Moses says plainly, “that He might humble you.” With no fields to plant and no barns to store grain, Israel was stripped of self-reliance. They learned daily dependence. The wilderness protected them from the illusion that strength, security, and success come from human effort alone.

God also used the wilderness to test them. The testing did not create faith; it revealed it. Pressure exposed whether obedience was conditional or steadfast. That is why Scripture does not treat faith as a private feeling. Faith must endure.

Then Moses addresses hunger: “He humbled you and let you be hungry.” God allowed real need, not as cruelty, but as instruction. Hunger taught Israel something prosperity never could: “man does not live by bread alone, but by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD.”

Scripture repeatedly reinforces this pattern. Affliction teaches obedience. Trials are not proof that God has stopped working; they are often proof that He is working deeply. God does not waste trials. He uses them to form a people who listen, trust, obey, and endure.