Settle it therefore in your minds not to meditate beforehand how to answer, for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict. You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and some of you they will put to death. You will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your lives. Luke 21:14-19
How will you know what to say then … if you can’t hear the Holy Spirit now? How will you endure… if you can’t weather the challenges now? How will you trust Him then …if you don’t trust Him now? Are you faithful now to His daily instructions to you?
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through Him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Romans 5:1-5
Why is this path of the faithful so difficult? When has the ‘narrow’ path been easy? Do you not know that we have a non-sleeping invisible enemy who hates us? Who wars against us? Do you know the enemy HATED Jesus? And if you are faithful to Him, they will also hate you.
“If the world hates you, know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will also keep yours. But all these things they will do to you on account of My name, because they do not know Him who sent Me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates Me hates my Father also. If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both Me and my Father. But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: ‘They hated me without a cause.’”
“But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness about Me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with Me from the beginning.” John 15:18-27
Have you been listening to the Helper that has been sent to you? Or is the noise so great in your mind that you can’t hear Him? Do doubts and fears clog your path with each instruction He gives you?
But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one. Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. For,
“Yet a little while,
and the coming one will come and will not delay;
but my righteous one shall live by faith,
and if he shrinks back,
my soul has no pleasure in him.”
But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls. Hebrews 10:32-39
How has He asked you to exercise the faith He has given to you? What steps has He asked you to take … that you have yet to step out in? What causes your hesitation? What doubts and fears does the enemy of your soul remind you about? Do you hear the countering Word from the Holy Spirit in your mind and soul as the enemy whispers in your ear? Whom do you believe? Whom do you listen to?
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, 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. Revelation 12:1-2
Run with endurance.