Endurance

God's word to us Sunday was about Endurance.

For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. (Hebrews 10:34)

Endurance, or steadfastness, perseverance, patience - seems to always connect a time of trouble, trial or tribulation with the promise, goal, reward, or joy to come. It's not something we do to get something we don't have, at least in pledge or promise - but something we hold onto, something we hold out for. Endurance means, in effect, faithfulness - hence the writer ends this section with that appeal.

In this passage we see confidence connected with reward, endurance with the promise, and faith with life.

And there is one of the keys - what is the reward, the "life" that we are seeking? We won't endure for something if there's a satisfactory trade-off that's easier, quicker, etc. We only sin because in that moment something holds out for us more satisfaction than Jesus, something seems more life-giving than trusting in God's love and grace...

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

And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming. ( 1 John 2:28)

The greatest motivation for endurance, of course, is Jesus' enduring the cross and the shame for the joy set before him - in order to secure our salvation, because in some real sense we were his joy...

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, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. (Hebrews 12:1-3)