About endurance !

Tuesday August 31, 2021

About endurance !

"If anyone wants to be my disciple, let him deny himself, take up his cross every day and follow me." Luke 9:23

Facing the ordeal with courage is not easy, but the worst part is when we do not understand the reason. We risk giving free rein to our frustration and or our bitterness. God is not used to giving us lengthy explanations to help us understand His way of working. When you get no answer through His word, through prayer, or through the advice of others, you don't know where or what to turn to. And you are not the first or the first in such a situation! David kept asking God this question through the Psalms : "Why... Why ?" This did not prevent God from calling him “a man after My heart, who will accomplish all My will” (Acts 13. 22). William Barclay pointed out that endurance was not only the ability to withstand difficulties, but also knowing how to use them to grow in maturity and achieve glory to God. When answers are scarce, the only question that matters is how to survive. The Bible teaches us that Jesus endured the humiliation of the crucifixion because He knew He would then experience the joy that was in store for Him (Hebrews 12.2), before advising us to “keep our eyes on Jesus, so that not to give in to discouragement and the temptation to give up everything.” If Jesus was able to endure suffering and humiliation, it was because He saw, beyond the cross, the joy that would be His to have accomplished the will of His Father, and to see little by little to build His Church. The Psalmist wrote : “I have the Lord constantly before me; when he is on my right hand, I am not moved” (Psalm 16. 8). Endurance does not deny reality and its difficulties. Nor is it a form of over-tenacity. Endurance is keeping your eyes fixed on Jesus and finding in Him the strength necessary to continue the struggle until victory.

Source (His Word for Today)