Grace to Endure

Endurance: Staying the course when problems look or feel overwhelming or the journey seems too long…

Even though we have the power of the Resurrected Christ, His Holy Spirit within us, always available to us---What motivates us to keep going when we feel like Jesus is a million miles away? What puts energy into our spirits when we seem to run out of answers and resources?

Where does our power to live, serve and to keep giving come from in the dry times? All of us run out of motivation from time to time, no matter how much we may have previously experienced. What is it that fuels us into effortless service out of the quagmires of life?

It seems that every day we are learning  that what used to motivate us is no longer enough. We must go further and higher, pressing on to what lies ahead. We must step into the unfolding grace that is always available and abundant in the next moment. In that grace we keep learning what Jesus is interested in, so we can lose interest in what we are used to pursuing. And we learn that unless Jesus is interested in what we are pursuing, the going will get tougher than we can bear.

Let’s consider how Paul approached this very real issue of endurance!

7 … what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. 8 Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith;10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, 11 if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.12 Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. 13 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, 14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Phi. 3: 10-14, NKJV)

We can’t think in terms of learning keys or secrets, but of continuing in the simplest truths of the gospel. We learn (sometimes daily) by experience that there is no way forward when pressed to our extremities but to sacrifice ourselves at every turn for His sake, knowing nothing but Jesus and Him crucified. We must die to live. It is better to give than to receive, and better to love than to be loved. We cannot lose, because we have a perfect Savior who is able to finish what He began in us, if we do not give up and throw away our faith.

8 I think you ought to know, dear brothers and sisters, about the trouble we went through in the province of Asia. We were crushed and completely overwhelmed, and we thought we would never live through it. 9 In fact, we expected to die. But as a result, we learned not to rely on ourselves, but on God who can raise the dead. 10 And he did deliver us from mortal danger. And we are confident that he will continue to deliver us. (2 Cor. 1:8-10 Msg)

Why? Because we are only jars of clay, very fragile and finite, capable of only giving out so much, and with very limited understanding and strength. We find ourselves daily embracing the Gospel of Grace and then we come to be encouraged by our human limitations. How can we be encouraged-because God’s power and glory will become obvious in our weakness?

“But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassing greatness of the power may be of God and not from ourselves; we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body” (2 Cor. 4:7–10).

Enduring by Grace, Ron Ross