What do you need to make important decisions last? Commitment would have to be one attribute. Think of marriage for example. Sorry girls, but the most important thing about the wedding day is not the dress or the flowers or the people who have come to watch you do that slow walk down the aisle. Or for the guys, it’s not the wedding night. The most important ten minutes is in the ceremony when the bride and the groom exchange vows. The vows talk about commitment to the end, through good, bad, whatever the circumstance, and submitting to one another. But what’s the power behind commitment? It has to be more that those two words ‘I do’. What keeps it going from day to day, year after year?
Marriage is an important decision but there is one that far exceeds it: your decision to follow Christ. What do you need that will make that commitment last until death does part you from this earth? From reading the Bible and observing great men and women of the faith I would have to say it’s the character quality of endurance. Jesus said, ‘But it is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved’ (Matthew 10:22). The previous verses describe difficult circumstances. People will hate you because of Jesus. When you look at what the word ‘endure’ means it makes a lot of sense: ‘To bear up under. To put up with; tolerate. To continue to be; last. To suffer without yielding.’ (Funk & Wagnalls Dictionary) In Matthew 24:13 Jesus says again, ‘But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved’. The previous verse speaks of people’s love growing cold.
… 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, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. – Hebrews 12:1-2 (ESV)
Endurance is the power behind your commitment to follow Jesus. You are not going to make it or finish the race without endurance. Our salvation depended on Jesus enduring the cross. Our faith depends on us enduring as well. The definition of ‘endure’ is all to do with perseverance, patience, hardships, suffering… Don’t kid yourself into thinking Christian life is free of hard times or suffering because of the excess of ‘positive’ preaching that the western church is possessed with. Here are some scriptures that aren’t mentioned much these days. The words of Jesus in Luke 21:12, ‘They will lay hands on you and persecute you, delivering you to the synagogues and prisons, bringing you before kings and governors for my name’s sake.’ Or these words in 2 Timothy 3:12, ‘…All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.’ Face the fact, society is becoming more hostile to Christianity. Just the name ‘Jesus Christ’, unless used as blasphemy, is considered offensive and politically incorrect.
Listen to these words of the late Corrie Ten Boom (she endured terrible persecution from Nazism for protecting Jews). ‘I have been in countries where the saints are suffering terrible persecution. In China the Christians were told, “Don’t worry, before the tribulation comes you will be raptured (taken from the troubles of this world in an instant, Luke 17:22-37).” Then came a terrible persecution, millions of Christians were tortured to death. Later on I heard a bishop from China sadly say, “We have failed. We should have made the people strong for persecution rather than telling them that Jesus would come first.” Turning to me he said, “Tell the people how to be strong in times of persecution and how to stand when the tribulation comes, how to stand and not faint.” I feel I have a divine mandate to go and tell the people of this world that it is possible to be strong in the Lord Jesus Christ. We are training for the tribulation, since I have already been through prison for Jesus’ sake and since I met the bishop from China, every time I read a good Bible text I think, “I could use that in a time of tribulation.” I write it down and learn it by heart.’
Did you feel her heart’s cry? How important is endurance? Persecution will happen, it’s happening right now, just ask ‘Voice of the Martyrs’. My intention is not to preach doom and gloom but the Bible clearly points out persecution will increase. I’m not against ‘The Rapture’, but like that bishop from China, I am concerned about the way it is preached. These days it more or less says, ‘Don’t worry, we won’t have to endure. We’re out of here before it gets difficult or any persecution comes’. This way of preaching completely undermines the message of endurance Jesus was so clear about. True Christianity is based on enduring faith and trust, not a promise to make it easy. The cross is the biggest inspiration for endurance of all time. Jesus didn’t take the easy way out. He endured and He has asked us to do the same. We say we want to be like Jesus. Well, this is one of His character qualities we need to pay more attention to.
This issue is so important. I need endurance if my faith is going to survive the daily grind of life and the persecution that will come. ‘The fellowship of His suffering’ (Philippians 3:10) makes me feel a little nervous. Have I got what it takes to endure? But then I am reminded, the God we serve loves us so intensely that He ‘endured the cross, despising the shame… so that you will not grow weary and lose heart’.