36 For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.
Life is one long endurance race. Perseverance is a necessity. Patience is a desirable quality. Steadfastness is an admirable trait. Endurance is needed from the school boy and girl to the senior adult. Endurance helps the new mother as well as the athlete. Endurance helps the worker stay at the task until the job is done. Endurance strengthens the homemaker and working wives to cook, clean, shop, chase kids, and maintain a happy home. Endurance helps the athlete to rehabilitate to full recovery.
Endurance helps the saints press on to the end of their earthly race. We all need endurance to press through the hard seasons of life, the endless trials and setbacks that come to all of us. It takes endurance to do the will of God.
The phrase "will of God" means to do what God wishes, desires and purposes. This is not always easy. It is not easy to maintain joy when many things turn adversely. It takes endurance to raise children in a way that honors the Lord and defies popular culture norms. It takes perseverance to ardently fight against temptation and sin to live in holiness which is the will of God.
Everything God wills is not easy and His purposes often do not happen overnight. It takes a lot of enduring grit to fulfill the wishes of God. Just ask a missionary or church planter in a difficult field. Just ask the pastor struggling in a small church or the one living by faith with meager means.
God wills that His people finish the race set before them to the end. He wants His people to finish with endurance. For some that will mean enduring multiple illnesses. For others it will mean long nights of loneliness in a bed they once shared with a soul mate. There will be long nights of weeping to endure for parents praying over prodigals. There will also be multiple broken hearts to overcome along the way.
We need endurance. That means endurance is necessary. Now here is the thing. This endurance is not just something we resolve to attain. God grants endurance as we trust and lean on Him.
Galatians 5:22-23 (NASB)
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
Another way to say patience is to say long suffering. It goes hand in hand with endurance. So when we pray let us not forget to ask God for endurance and endurance for those we love. Endurance for people of all ages and stages of life. This is what we need to do the will of God.
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