Persistence Trumps Resistance

Hebrews 10:35-36 (NKJV)
³⁵ Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward. ³⁶ For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise:

A well-known minister of the Gospel was asked by her grandson (paraphrase), “How did you do all the things you’ve done over almost fifty years of ministry in light of the resistance you faced along the way?” (Among the things she and her husband had faced were… determining at the onset of the ministry that they would never borrow money for anything; a time when the ministry had fallen behind several millions of dollars in their daily TV broadcast; overcoming health challenges that included a diagnosis of death over a grandchild… just to mention just a few) Her answer was brief and to the point, “You just keep walking.”

What she was saying was, “NEVER GIVE UP.”  We sometimes look at successful ministries and successful people and think that because they are successful they have reached a place where they no longer are attacked.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Actually, they probably experience increased attacks because of the higher level of faith from which they are operating.  There is a saying, “New level, new devil.”  What makes them successful is that after all the years in which they have experienced challenges, they have learned one important fact; that, when you stand on a promise of God, you will see it come to pass, if you don’t give up.

According to Hebrews 10:35-36, there are three elements to seeing your faith manifest that for which you are believing. First, you must do the will of God as it pertains to your particular situation.  That can involve something as simple as finding the promise of God for your situation and making a faith declaration that it belongs to you as a child of God. Or, other times it might involve something more, like dealing with a situation that God has brought to your attention by removing THE BLESSING blocker that is preventing you from receiving that which you are believing for (i.e., forgiveness, strife, envy). The second element necessary is “endurance”.  The dictionary definition of endure is “to bear; to sustain…without breaking or yielding to force or pressure”.  Pressure is one avenue the devil uses to derail your faith. If he can get you to turn your attention from the promise of the Word and get you to focus on the pressure of the problem, he can break your resolve.  The third element is “receiving the promise”.   Many believers tend to think that receiving the “promise” is not necessarily a “sure thing” (see Message version below). However, receiving the promise is a “done deal” from God’s view. He has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3). What this means for us is that we don’t have to sit around during the “endurance” period and wonder if the promise is going to come to pass.  The Creator of all things has made a promise – period!

Having a NEVER GIVE UP attitude creates a bridge which connects you to the promise of God for which you are believing. It takes you from the “amen, to, there it is” every time! 

Hebrews 10:35-36 (MSG)
So don’t throw it all away now. You were sure of yourselves then. It’s still a sure thing! But you need to stick it out, staying with God’s plan so you’ll be there for the promised completion.

 10/16