Endurance

the inward strength to withstand stress and difficulty to accomplish your best for God
(Tom Ross from Cultivation Christian Character)

Galatians 6:9”And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”

As God’s children we are encouraged to endure in our life’s work of honoring and serving Him. “Endurance is found by exercising patience, faithfulness, determination, and diligence.”
Hebrews 10:36 “For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.”
Hebrews 12:1b “let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,”

Metaphors of Endurance: a marathon runner, a prize fighter, soldier
I Corinthians 9:24“Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. (also see Hebrews 12:1-3)
I Corinthians 9:26-27 “I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air: But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.”
II Timothy 2:3-4 “Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.”

We are called upon to endure: Tribulation, Hardness, Chastening, Persecution, Suffering (II Timothy 2:12; Hebrews 11:25; I Peter 2:20; John 15:19-20; II Timothy 3:11-12; II Thessalonians 1:4 )
Romans 8:17 “if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.”
Acts 14:22 “Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.”
Hebrews 12:7a If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons;
Endurance does not earn us salvation, it gives evidence of salvation; a true indwelling of God. (Matthew 24:13)

Examples of Endurance: God, Moses, Paul, Jesus Christ
Psalm 104:31 (also read Psalms 102:25-27; 106:1; 111:3)
“The glory of the LORD shall endure for ever: the LORD shall rejoice in his works.”
Hebrews 11:27 “By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible”
II Timothy 4:7 (also read I Corinthians 11:21-30; I Timothy 2:10)
“I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness,”
Hebrews 12:2-3 “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of [our] faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.”


Oh, God, help us to endure, for Christ's sake!