Endurance and the Waves

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering…

─Galatians 5:22a (NKJV)

Have you ever had waves of trials slamming into you seemingly simultaneously? Sometimes it’s like waves are hitting me from all four sides and from the top and bottom all at the same time. I cry out to the Lord for relief but they don’t cease, they just keep slamming into the shores of my soul.

This is counterintuitive to me. Let me explain in a formula:

The more trials + the longer they last = heightened weakening, enhancing the potential for failure. Bad.

The solution, humanly speaking at least, would be:

Reducing the number of trials + shortening their length of time = greater strength, enhancing the potential for lengthened success. Good.

But have you noticed; God doesn’t behave the way WE would. He doesn’t comply with our limited-view expectations. We see time in hours, days, weeks, etc. He sees time immemorial. Therefore, God’s equation would seem to be something like this:

Be strong in the Lord through trials (Ephesians 6:10ff, 1 Peter 1:3-12) + obedience (1 John 5:1-3) = deliverance (eventually, Deuteronomy 8:1-10).  Faith.

Without God, our ability to endure multiple trials is seriously compromised if not completely paralyzed. The world just does not have solutions that sink into the soul without first corrupting the soul. However, God provides the antidote to this worldly pollution; the indwelling Holy Spirit. That is why the Galatians verse above is so important to grasp.  Fruit is something that grows outwardly based upon what is already inside. An apple tree produces apples, not oranges. Why? Well, because it has apple characteristics (genes) all the way to its core (pardon the pun). So if we are saturated to our core in the Holy Spirit, then we’ll produce Spirit-sparked fruit. One of these fruit is longsuffering.

Longsuffering is from a Greek word that is also translated as ‘patience’ or, more aptly to my point of view, ‘endurance’.  Endurance, according to the Encarta Dictionary, means “the ability or power to bear prolonged exertion, pain or hardship.” That sounds an awful lot like longsuffering to me. 

Thus, back to my equation example. If trials were simple and/or short in duration, then our ability to endure through them would be just that—our own ability. But as trials mount to the point of fainting, God, by way of the indwelling Holy Spirit infuses us with the ability to persevere, to endure. And if we’re not careful, we may even have joy through the endurance because joy is another Spirit-sparked fruit. 

When the trials finally cease, whether in days, weeks or even years, there will be no doubt that it was God that brought us through the trials. Hmm, reminds me of a couple of other Scriptures:

And He said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.”

─2 Corinthians 12:9

My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trails, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.

─James 1:2-3

And, finally, as we endure through the trials, we need to realize that we’re not alone:

“I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

─Jesus, Matthew 28:20

So hang in there, a better day is coming.

Obedience--Pursuing God, Part 2

Obedience.  Oh, how we seem to hate this word. For some reason, we have fallen into the trap of thinking that obedience somehow means we lose our identity; that we somehow become less of an individual, and thereby lose our significance.  Hogwash!

 

Consider this:

 

‘Yet He (Jesus) learned obedience by the things which He suffered’ (Hebrews 5:8, NKJV).

‘He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross’ (Philippians 2:8).

 

Jesus, the great I AM, embraced obedience to a degree you and I never will. So if the Savior of all mankind was obedient, then we ought to follow His example and rid our thinking of all the nonsense that obedience is bad. And while last week we explored two key elements in pursuing God—prayer and Scripture—this is the third key to pursuing God—obedience. 

 

‘Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves Him who begot also loves him who is begotten of Him. By this we know that we love the children of God and keep His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome’ (1 John 5:1-3).

Interestingly, the above reference calls us to obedience while also stating that being obedient is not burdensome. In other words, God’s commandments are not heavy or weighty. This truth is much to the contrary of what the enemy wants us to think.  So much of faithless religion is based solely on works; the more we work then the more favor we have with God. Yet here God is saying that His commandments are not burdensome; man’s commandments may be, but God’s commandments are not. 

But is this true? Let’s look at a couple of examples.

 

Let’s begin with Jesus Himself by looking at the Mark 12, where a scribe poses a question to Jesus:

 

“Which is the first commandment of all?”

Jesus answered him, “The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:28b-31).

Hmm. I can just imagine this exchange. The Scribe, probably in some sort of robe, wanted to trap Jesus by asking Him a question that seemed impossible to answer (see also Matthew 22:34-40 and Luke 10:25-28). But Jesus, leveling His gaze in a way that looked right through the man, had no hesitation in His answer. Not only that, Jesus gave two commandments back at the man, not just one (you can’t put Jesus in a box).  He didn’t throw out a bunch of rules and regulations; instead, he spoke of love.

 

The Apostle Paul spoke to this as well by way of an admonition.

 

“We should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the conning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ” (Ephesians 4:14-15).

Again, the exercise of obedience from 1 John 5 as further defined in Ephesians is speaking the truth; but it isn’t speaking it hatefully or as a verbal weapon. Instead, truth is to be spoken in love.

 

So a third key in pursuing God is obedience. Obedience to God is not burdensome because it is to be bathed in and motivated by love.  So as we allow the Holy Spirit to work in our souls by intentionally pursuing God in prayer and Scripture with the desire to be obedient, He will empower us to also love with the love by which He first loved us (see Galatians 5:22 and 1 John 4:19).  

He is Risen—But Are We?

The breathless excitement of Easter, or what some call Resurrection Day, quickly fades as the busyness of life re-asserts its presence in our lives. Come Monday we again face traffic, overdue reports, childcare, taxes, and the general malaise of the mundane, day-to-day grind. As the open tomb lingers on the outskirts of our consciousness, it’s that first cup of coffee that dominates our first thoughts. 

Our minds become dulled by daily repetition and lulled by comfort.  The reality of the resurrection and its supreme significance is fogged over by Facebook, cable TV, and instant messaging.  Suddenly, we find ourselves lacking joy, emptied of purpose and distant from God. Little did we recognize the ever-so-stealthy schemes of the enemy, luring us into a trap of convenience and predictability.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.  God never intended it to be this way.  

“I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full,” said Jesus (John 10:10b). Jesus is teaching us that life in Him is meant to be filled with vitality, excitement, and purpose.  One of my study Bibles states that Jesus calls us “to a rich, full, joyful life, one overflowing with meaningful activities under the personal favor and blessing of God and in continual fellowship with his people” (ESV Study Bible).  This sounds anything but mundane and raises one looming question:

How do we live this way every day? What is the connector between us and God?

Jesus, after teaching about not worrying over everyday things, then said:

“But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33). The Greek word for ‘seek’ means to ‘strive after’ or ‘pursue’; thus, we are to strive after the kingdom of God before we strive for anything else.

But how?  I suggest two things: 1) prayer. Pray upon awakening in the morning, even if it’s just to get up to go to the bathroom—pray to your Heavenly Father. Then set a time to intentionally sit quietly and seek the Lord in prayer; for me first thing in the morning works best and it seems to model what Jesus did on a daily basis, but each Christ-follower must find which time of the day is best for their clarity of mind with minimal distractions.

2) Is reading the Scripture. I don’t mean to just read it to satisfy a devotional plan or to place a check mark in a to-do box, but really read the Scripture. Ask God to speak to you through the words you are reading, because they are living and active (see Hebrews 4:12).

Another key to learning to live the life that Jesus has called us to is obedience:

“Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome” (1 John 5:1-3).

Our culture is rife with rebellion and rampant individualism, obedience is no longer a highly touted character trait; but God looks very favorably on obedience.  What’s more, obedience to God is not burdensome. That may shock you if you’ve been raised in works-oriented families or churches—where your worth is based on what you do rather than who you are—but really reading Scripture will reveal a loving Father, not a lording task master.

Take for instance the following:

“And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, ‘Which commandment is the most important of all?’

“Jesus answered, ‘The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these: (Mark 12:28-31).

What is Jesus calling us to do? Love.  Now before you go thinking that Jesus was all mamby-pamby, this is the same man that came into the temple where merchants and purchasers were transacting business. There were a lot of people, perhaps hundreds. Even so, this multitude was defiling the temple of God and Jesus cleansed the temple by driving them all out of the temple and yelling after them, “It is written, my house will be called a house of prayer, but you make it a den of robbers” (Matthew 21:13). That is certainly no wimp in my book. So, in regard to love, it is clear that at times love has teeth in it and is therefore not always hand-holding, Kumbaya mushy stuff but is instead, a realistic tapestry of human emotion and compassion rolled into action.

So one vital principle to keeping the essence of Easter alive is understanding and living the truth that we are to seek God first and foremost above anything else. This principle entails prayer, Scripture reading, and obedience.