Be still, and know that I am God… —Psalm 46:10
{CHAMBERS} “Perseverance
is more than endurance. It is endurance combined with absolute assurance and
certainty that what we are looking for is going to happen. Perseverance means
more than just hanging on, which may be only exposing our fear of letting go
and falling. Perseverance is our supreme effort of refusing to believe that our
hero is going to be conquered. Our greatest fear is not that we will be damned,
but that somehow Jesus Christ will be defeated. Also, our fear is that the very
things our Lord stood for— love, justice, forgiveness, and kindness among men—
will not win out in the end and will represent an unattainable goal for us.
Then there is the call to spiritual perseverance. A call not to hang on and do
nothing, but to work deliberately, knowing with certainty that God will never
be defeated.”
{ELGIN} If you
look around at the chaos and depravity in this country and in this world, you
might be tempted to doubt that God will ever intervene. But He has already. The name of that intervention is Jesus. Were you hopeful that we would have a Christian
president who would save us and turn this country around? If Billy Graham were elected president, even he
could not change the hearts of the lost through the presidency. It is man’s tendency to want a “king” to make
things right. (1 Samuel 8) When I would drive around in Haiti, I was always amazed
at the names of the stores and shops.
One auto parts store is named “Mesi Jezi”, thank you Jesus auto
parts. Another “Bondye Fidel”, God is
faithful. The building supply store I
frequented in Jacmel was “Perseverance”, which need no translation. They all served as a reminder that God is
present and sovereign.
The situation in the world may seem dark, but it is not the
first time, nor, until Jesus returns, will it be the last. (Romans 1:24,26,28) God gave them over in the lusts of their
hearts to impurity, God gave them over to degrading passions, and God gave them
over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper. But, at no point did God budge from His sovereignty. As for the Christian in these troubled times,
God wants us to persevere in our faith in spite of the turmoil around us. (2 Corinthians 4:7-10) “But we have this
treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and
not of us. We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are
perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but
not destroyed— always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus,
that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.” To quote someone I
know very well, me, “The darker the night, the brighter the light.” So let your light shine.
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