As I’m wrapping up reading through the book of James, I was inspired to go back to the beginning and read it through from start to finish in one sitting. In going back to the beginning, I was again captivated by verses 2-4 in chapter 1:
“Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. 3 For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. 4 So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.” James 1:2-4 NLT
I think of brothers and sisters in the faith using this charge with tears of love and zeal in their eyes to encourage fellow believers who are presently experiencing such trials.
It also draws me to where the writer of Hebrews speaks of the suffering or trials that Jesus had to go through in order for His human experience to be complete:
“In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered.” Hebrews 2:10 NIV
“Even though Jesus was God’s Son, he learned obedience from the things he suffered. 9 In this way, God qualified him as a perfect High Priest, and he became the source of eternal salvation for all those who obey him.” Hebrews 5:8-9 NLT
“Here being “made perfect” means “learning obedience” through suffering. This does not mean that he was once disobedient and then became obedient. It means that Jesus moved from untested obedience into suffering and then through suffering into tested and proven obedience. And this proving himself obedient through suffering was his “being perfected.”
Now the writer says (in Hebrews 2:10) that it was fitting for Christ to attain this proven perfection through sufferings. Why? Because Christ is leading many sons to glory and so he must succeed where we failed. We have all suffered and failed to be perfected by it. Instead we murmur and complain and get angry at God and his providence. In this way we will never attain the glory of God. Psalm 8 will never be true for us. Someone must come and rescue us and lead us to glory. And if Christ is going to lead us to glory, then he must succeed in sufferings where we failed. And that he did. He was perfected in them.”
https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/our-captain-made-perfect-through-sufferings