How To Love the Lord thy God With all your heart, soul, mind and strength

Chapter 7 Endurance

Hebrews 10:36 For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised.

Hebrews 12:1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, 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,

Revelation 14:12 Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus.  

How does endurance fit into the picture? Let us go back to the moment of temptation, you are tempted to sin in some way, perhaps it is your favorite sin the one that is the hardest to resist. I think I mentioned this before but Jesus is not going to mess around he is going right to the heart of your sin problem and take on the hardest sin first. He is not going to pussy foot around and nibble away at the edges of your pile of sins. It is gonna be the big one first so brace yourself for the big battle because it is gonna be a woozy.

Now back to the moment of temptation, first and foremost you must call out to God to deliver you, to rescue you, to save you from your sin. He saves us not just from the consequences of our sins but also from having to sin. Satan wants us to believe that we have to sin that the temptation is way too powerful for us to resist. That we are slaves to it. No we are not! For greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world. Put your trust in Him, He is willing and available to rescue you, He is waiting for you to call on Him and He will immediately began the process.

I have mentioned this before but it is worth mentioning again, Christ will not rescue you instantly, there will be a short time delay and this is where endurance comes into play. In Hebrews he says that we have need of endurance and then later he says, let us run with endurance the race set before us. So after you have called on the name of the Lord, hold on, hold on to Him and do not let go. This is your faith and your endurance working together waiting for Christ to exercise His power to deliver you.

Just remember this, it won’t take long, He knows we are weak and frail. But it is required of you to wait a little while for Him. How many verses have you read in the Bible exhorting you to wait on the Lord? Well here you are. So here’s how it is going to go down.

1. You are tempted.
2. You call on Christ for deliverance.
3. You wait
4. You don’t give up
5. A little more waiting, (endurance)
6. Boom, Christ delivers you
7. The temptation fades away.
8. You give thanks for your deliverance
9. You try to stay away from that particular sin. “Lead me not into…”

Here’s more verses on endurance:

Revelation 1:9 I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.

Revelation 2:2 “‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false.

Revelation 2:19 “‘I know your works, your love and faith and service and patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed the first.

Revelation 3:10 Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth.

Revelation 13:10I f anyone is to be taken captive,to captivity he goes; if anyone is to be slain with the sword,

with the sword must he be slain.Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints.

Revelation 14:12 Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus.

Notice in Revelations Christ takes note and praises the Church’s who exhibited patient endurance. Also notice how many times He uses patience with the word endurance.

This is it brothers and sisters, this is the way the only way to obtain a whole hearted love for the Lord Jesus Christ. It starts in the battlefield not in the morning worship service. You must suit up, put on the whole armor of God and face the enemy one on one, just you and all the forces the enemy can muster against you. You are faced with an overwhelming overpowering enemy and just look at you, you are weak you are pitiful you are scared to death, you have a little faith but what is that against such a powerful enemy?The odds are overwhelmingly against you. How can you possibly win?

Its that little tiny shred of faith that you have. And you do have a tiny bit of faith you can’t deny it because circling back to the beginning of your conversion the Scriptures say that you are saved by grace through faith and that it is not of yourselves but it is a gift of God, remember? So you were given faith as a gift from God. If you deny that then you are denying Christ and are not a Christian.

So lets not go there, you have some faith and it doesn’t matter how small it is, the faith the size of a mustard can tell a mountain to lift up and go into the sea. So small is okay.

It is not you doing the heavy lifting. Imagine having a giant as your best friend, whenever you need some heavy lifting done you just tell  your giant friend if he would be so kind as to pick up that car and move it or whatever. Something greater than a friendly giant is living inside you, don’t ever forget that.

I think by now you have the picture, it is time to put it into practice. If you run into problems I have a chapter coming up that deals with failure so don’t give up on this the most important journey of your life.