<p>5:8<i> Be you also patient. Establish your hearts. For the coming of the Lord is at hand</i>-Again, James throws down an ultimate challenge- to show the same supreme patience to our stumbling spiritual development and blatant faults which God shows to us, to both the trials which help us develop and also to our weak brethren.</p><p>&quot;Establish&quot; means both to set fast/ confirm, and also to turn resolutely- which neatly makes it relevant to both groups in the readership, the one who needed to continue to develop their already spiritual mind, and the other who needed to resolutely turn their hearts around in repentance. The word occurs relatively frequently in Thessalonians, also in the context of preparing for the Lord's coming- showing that the main way of preparing for the second coming is by a conscious development of our way of thinking, which can only be achieved through true commitment to the word. Very often the Greek word for &quot;stablish&quot; is used about God stablishing our heart- showing that God will work on our hearts in accord with our personal effort. 1 Thess. 3:12,13 even suggests that this stablishing or confirming of the mind which we have personally developed will be done for us at the judgment seat, where self-doubt as to whether we have had a truly spiritual mind will loom large: &quot;Abound in love one toward another... to the end He may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God... at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ&quot;. Notice this stablishing is dependent on loving each other now- very relevant in the James context.</p><p>The coming of the Lord was drawing nearer on behalf of their patience. The exhortation to patience was not just because they needed to patiently endure in their spirituality, but also because James was probably aware that the second coming of the Lord which he expected in the first century was quite likely to be delayed, due to the lack of Israel's repentance. Both James and the parallel Peter (2 Pet. 3:11,15) are saying: 'Be patient for the second coming and continue your spiritual patience so that it will come quicker and you won't have to be patient for so long'. Thus Peter's parallel to this v.8 is &quot;The end of all things is at hands: be therefore sober (self-controlled- by having a stablished mind), and watch unto prayer. And above all things have fervent love among yourselves&quot; (1 Pet. 4:7,8). They were to continue their effective love to those brethren who so abused them, praying earnestly for the second coming. This would only be achieved by their continued attention to stablishing their thinking, so that it was consistently controlled by the word rather than just being partially controlled- which was the root cause of the semi-faith and lukewarm commitment to true spirituality that had been the downfall of the other brethren.</p><p>&quot;Draws near&quot; literally means 'is made near'- the more spiritually aware, especially those who had heard of Peter's reasoning in 2 Pet.3, would have seen in this the implication that a stablishing of the mind would draw near the Lord's coming. The same Greek phrase occurs in 4:8 &quot;Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you&quot;- and we have seen that this refers to praying to God acceptably from a heart influenced by the word. Such prayer would hasten the second coming- a basic principle taught in the Lord's prayer, seeing there is no point in praying &quot;Thy Kingdom come&quot; unless we believe those prayers will result in the days being shortened to that day.</p><p>James 5:8 cp. v.11 seems to connect &quot;the coming of the Lord&quot; and &quot;the end of the Lord&quot; with Job in Job 42. The fact that the Lord was &quot;very pitiful, and of tender mercy&quot; with Job thus reminds us of how He will be in our day of judgement.</p>