By your endurance you will gain your lives. Luke 21:19
In what sorts of things do you have to show endurance or perseverance? Putting together a 1000-piece puzzle. Figuring out a 3D puzzle. Solving a sudoko. Walking the dogs every day. Reading your Bible every day. Why do these things require endurance? They are not easy. You can’t spend thirty seconds on the puzzle and have it all put together. That’s why it’s called a puzzle; if it was easy to solve, they wouldn’t call it a puzzle. Reading your Bible and walking every day means that you are committed to a task no matter how you feel or what is on your agenda for the day. You think of them as a part of your life, like eating or drinking or breathing.
But there are other things which require endurance - things that you want to do, but require a lot of time and effort. Pulling weeds in my garden requires endurance. I have a big garden and the weeds grow quickly! Painting an entire house require endurance because it’s such a big task. Fencing the property requires endurance because it’s not easy to drive in posts and string wire - at least, it’s not easy if you do it right. So why do we do the things that are hard? Why do we keep going, keep enduring? Because of the reward that is waiting for us! I pull weeds so that the plants I intentionally planted will grow and produce fruits and vegetables for my family to eat. I paint the house so that the wood will be protected. Otherwise the wood will start to deteriorate. Repairing or replacing rotten wood would be much more expensive and exhausting than just painting the house! I fence the property so that the land can be used more productively, instead of just lying fallow.
So many things in life require endurance: climbing a mountain, walking across the country, taming the squirrels in your backyard. So the question is: which of these things that we could do are worth the time it’ll take to actually do them?
And for the Christian, the question is: Which of the things that I can do are going to bring glory and honor to my God? Which of the things that I can do are good for my growth as a Christian? As a servant of the King of the Universe, which of the things that I can do are worth my time to actually do?
Sometimes we think that endurance only applies to big things - like being persecuted for our faith. But before we even get to the point of being persecuted for our faith, we have to have a faith. That comes through reading His word, reading the Bible, every day and studying it to find out what God is saying to us. Then we need to pray to Him, every day. We need to spend time thinking about what God has said and how it applies to our lives. And we have to spend time intentionally obeying God - like when we fast. If we don’t know how God wants us to live, because we don’t read the Bible, then how are we going to know what we really stand for? And if we don’t know what we stand for, then how could we be persecuted for it? Or what’s worse, what if you don’t read your Bible and what you believe isn’t what God really says - and then you’re persecuted - for something that isn’t even true?! If you are going to be persecuted, wouldn’t you rather be persecuted for the truth instead of something you just think is the truth?
The wonderful thing about the Feast of Weeks, Pentecost, is that it pictures a time in history when the Holy Spirit of God was poured out on all believers. That means God’s people have help! The Holy Spirit leads us into all truth (John 16:13). It gives us the strength (Ephesians 3:16) to choose God’s way when the world around us is pulling us away from God. When we don’t know what to pray for, the Spirit intercedes for us (Romans 8:26). What an incredible blessing God has given to His people!! Through this gift of the Holy Spirit, we have to ability to endure, to persevere, to walk worthy of the calling that we have received.
But we can’t just shrug our shoulders and say that the Holy Spirit is going to do all the work; I just have to live my life. It’s true: We have the Holy Spirit working within us, leading us and strengthening us. But we still have to choose God’s ways. We choose to read the Bible each day. We choose to celebrate His Sabbath and Holy Days. We choose to assemble ourselves together to worship Him. We choose, in a word, to obey Him in the small things every day. If we do that, then we’ll have the foundation to endure if something big comes along.
And if you’re wondering if it’s worth it, 2 Timothy 2:12 says, “If we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us.” Absolutely it’s worth it!! We have the reward of His kingdom, and of reigning in His kingdom with Him!
There are so many people who come to worship God with you every week. They are part of the blessing God has given to you to encourage you, to exhort you, to support you - because they are also filled with God’s Holy Spirit.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, Hebrews 12:1
You have a race laid out before you - called your life - where you are being led by God and His Holy Spirit to trust Him and obey Him in every one of your choices. The reward is great! I want to see you endure!
By your endurance you will gain your lives. Luke 21:19