… so that you may have great endurance and patience, …
Summary: Why we need endurance and patience is a question that helps us understand our relationship with God and his Word.
I found it very interesting to consider why God gives us “all power.” Paul explains why in today’s passage. God wants us to have “great endurance and patience.”
Okay. We understand why God gives us power, but why does he want us to have endurance and patience? What are we supposed to endure? Who are we supposed to be patient with?
Before we answer these questions, I would like to share a story.
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When I was younger, I believed in God, but the Bible was a mystery. It seemed confusing and complicated. I did not understand the language, nor did I understand the concepts.
As a young man, I struggled to find my place in the world. It was a challenge every day. I had a wisp of a faith in God, but no real knowledge. When I attended college, I majored in religious studies and learned all kinds of ways to look at the Bible. Unfortunately, they all tended to look down on the Bible instead of up to it.
From a secular point of view, the Bible is a book about God. It is nothing more than a collection of old writings written by Jews and early Christians. It expresses opinions about God, not facts.
When it comes to opinions, we all have them. The important thing about opinions is to recognize them as such. Opinions are not facts.
The Bible is full of facts, but only if we believe that it is written by God. If we falter on that point, if we doubt that God was able to get his book published, then we won’t believe what the Bible tells us. To put it another way, we will be blind to the facts that God has presented to us in his Word.
So why do we need “great endurance and patience?”
The answer has to do with changes that happen to us when we believe in God’s Word. If we accept the Bible as fact, then everything is different. It is like Alice when she steps through the looking glass in “Alice in Wonderland.”
People who believe in the Bible are transported into a world of angels and demons, kings and queens, and endless adventure. God himself becomes a man and walks among us saying and doing amazing things. Belief in God’s Word not only opens the door to a world we cannot see, it opens the door to faith in God. Faith, in turn, opens the door to miracles.
One of those miracles is the power to overcome the corrupt nature we are born with. Another miracle is to endure the harsh contrast of living with people who don’t yet believe, or worse, who claim to believe but don’t act like it.
As believers, we seem to have one foot in heaven. The other foot, still planted on earth, looks filthy and dead by comparison. Working out God’s will while we live in the flesh requires living in two places. While we are here, we need great endurance and patience.
Application: Practice loving others as God loves us.
Food for Thought: What are the most hurtful sources of pain in a Christian life?
What are the most hurtful sources of pain in a Christian life?
Well the book of christian martyrs would be a start. But that would be looking at things through two different glasses. One from a worldly view and then one that strengthens faith and shows how God can use things for good.
Then my second thought goes to friends and family can cause much pain. It’s those you let in, people you allow to get close to you, past your guard that are able to cut you the deepest. Sometimes it’s yourself.
Thank you, Tim!
Right on all counts. Sometimes we stub our emotional toes on our own. I agree that those closest to us can cause the most pain. This is when God’s miraculous power becomes most obvious.
Excellent perspective Tim. And I appreciate your honesty and transparency.
I think this is deeply personal and different for each person. Tim mentioned the book oof martyrs. People in third world countries that are closed to Christianity will have the experience of serious persecution. Some may have been imprisoned for their faith. Some may have lost jobs or homes. Some may have lost loved ones. Their perspective might be different than ours.
Then there are people who have lived through personal abuse or trauma they gave to overcome.
Then there is hurt through physical injury, mental illness, severe loss or personal tragedy, church hurt, etc.
The amount of pain this world has to offer knows many faces. James pictured this well when he put said “consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds.” There are indeed many kinds. But God can also use all kinds to mature us in the faith.
James 1: 2 – 4: Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
Thank you, Rich!
As I read through your comment, I find myself dividing your examples into three categories:
1. Intentional hurt (Persecution)
2. Incidental hurt (Broken world stuff)
3. Emotional hurt (relational)
I agree that endurance and patience are needed to face all three kinds.
What are the most hurtful sources of pain in a Christian life?
There are many hurtful things that can come about in a Christian life. I think the most hurtful are the ones where we want to do good for someone, to help restore someone, either as a result of our own past sin that hurt them, or just out of showing the love of Christ to someone, but they refuse it. Sometimes the hurt is compounded when the other person uses our sincere vulnerability to strike at our heart.
Christ suffered this with great endurance and patience. He suffered it to bring us hope.
I am reminded of Proverbs 29:18. I believe it offers comfort when we experience hurt as a Christian, and points to the hope that Christ brought:
Proverbs 29:18 English Standard Version
18 Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint, but blessed is he who keeps the law.
If we lose sight that the hurt of this life is temporary, that God wants to and will restore us to His glory if we place our trust in Him, we allow ourselves to fall into despair. If we let go of hope, we lose hope. When we continue to love God first, and love our neighbor as ourselves, the blessing from God is the hope that Christ brought. Hope that all those that place their faith in Christ will be reunited in Heaven. Hope that our hurt will serve to bring others to Christ. That through enduring it with patience, others will see Christ living in us.
Well said, Chris!
You are quite right. Rejection is horribly painful. Opening ourselves up and being vulnerable invites intimacy, but can also open the door to great pain.
Jesus understands all these kinds of pain. Somehow that increases my confidence that he will be able to help me through my own pain.
What are the most hurtful sources of pain in a Christian life?
2 Timothy 3:12 – “all who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted”
Acts 14:22 – “It is necessary to go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God”
Philippians 1:29 – “it has been granted to you on Christ’s behalf not only to believe in him but also to suffer for him”
When I received Jesus, my first stop was with each member of my family. My father and mother were first. Through tears, my father said, “ I have worked my whole life to keep you out of church, and now here you are, a blank, blank christian! “
My brothers and sister reacted in ho hum responses, and our association was limited to times when they wanted something. Eventually total separation.
Friends wanted to pull me back from my Bible studies and church and in time we simply parted company. I was called by God to many years in Bible studies, Church and work.
I am sorry for the family that chose to part company, but I had a much higher calling, and the poor choices of others was not going to interfere with my LIFE with Jesus.
My 47 years with Jesus, the too many to be remembered lives given to Jesus, the encouragement I have received from men being changed in deep studies of God’s word.
This life, all pain endured is simply a moment in time as I look forward to an eternity with Jesus Christ.
Ron,
Wow.
What a powerful portrait of personal sacrifice for the Lord!
Your words remind me of Matthew 8:22 —
“But Jesus told him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”
Thank you!