A Call to Persevere (Our High Calling Part 4)
Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ - 1 Peter 1:13
The Christian life is not an easy journey, in fact, we are promised that we will encounter many trails and have to endure much suffering on our journey (Acts 14:22, 1 Peter 1:6-7, 2 Corinthians 1:6-7, Romans 8:17). Grieved by various trials, enduring wave after wave of affliction, and surrounded by many whose hearts have grown cold; we are vulnerable to the tempters voice to give up and go back to the ease of the world, conforming to our former lusts. However, suffering in the Christian life is to be expected, and is in fact necessary. It is not merely said that we will endure trials, but that we will be grieved by them. There are seasons when trials will be heavy upon our shoulders, and you can do nothing but shed tears of sorrow.
There are many reasons God may have for our sufferings: fighting pride, weaning us from the world and sin (1 Peter 4:1, Hebrews 12:5-8), intimacy with Christ (Philippians 3:10), comforting others in affliction (2 Corinthians 1:6-7), producing endurance (Romans 5:3-5), and to show that the power belongs to God and not us (2 Corinthians 4:7). These trials come for the testing of faith (James 1:2-4), and we should not be surprised when they come (1 Peter 4:12-13).
Nevertheless, the pull from the world, flesh, and the devil, can be strong and besetting when under the trials of life, and we are in need of perseverance (Hebrews 10:35-36). Our Lord himself said:
But he who endures to the end shall be saved. - Matthew 24:13
We are told, therefore, in 1 Peter 1:13 to:
gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. - 1 Peter 1:13
As followers of Christ, we must be reminded that this present world is not our home, but we are sojourners, looking forward to our heavenly home with Jesus. Christ is our life and we are alive to God in him, and, on that basis, we must rest our hope fully on the grace that is to come when Jesus returns.
Let your waist be girded and your lamps burning; and you yourselves be like men who wait for their master, when he will return from the wedding, that when he comes and knocks they may open to him immediately. Blessed are those servants whom the master, when he comes, will find watching. - Luke 12:35-37
Jesus' words help give understanding to Peter's (1 Peter 1:13) and Paul's (Ephesians 6:14), which is a call to readiness, waiting for our saviors return and holding fast to the truth. Girding the loins of our mind, is a strong exhortation against a looseness, indifference, and divided heart, and a call to be girded with the truth of God's word like a belt.
I wanted to include this short article, because I feel it is very important for believers to be reminded our need to persevere and to redirect our hope, as the scripture says, on the grace that will be brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ. I would really like for you to read a sermon by Charles Spurgeon on this topic, titled Girded for the Work.
Also, if you are not in Christ, it is of the utmost importance that you believe in Jesus Christ. The hope that a Christian has of the grace that will be his at the revelation of Jesus Christ will, not be a hope you can share if you are not trusting in him. If you are not covered in the blood of Jesus, the stain of sin remains on you, and you will pay it's consequence in Hell. The reality is that all men fall short of God's glory and are deserving of his wrath; the pardon of sin offered through Jesus Christ is the only hope for anyone.
The true believer will persevere to the end! Those who begin the race, but do not persevere, will not be saved. They prove that they were not truly a child of God. The Bible if filled with men, who at one point appeared to be sincere, but later forsook the Lord. Judas Iscariot, sold the Lord Jesus for 30 pieces of silver; Demas, loving this present world, forsook the Apostle Paul and returned to Thessalonica; Simon Magus, who as the Bible says believed and was baptized, offered money to buy the Holy Spirit.
They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us. - 1 John 2:19
The Bible is clear that those who begin, but do not continue were not true children of God. It is not the one who merely begins the race that receives the prize, but the one who finishes. 1 Corinthians 9:24 says:
Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. We must run our race in such a way to obtain the prize; our prize is the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing.
Hebrews 6:13-20:
For when God made a promise to Abraham, because He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, saying, “Surely blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply you.” And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise. For men indeed swear by the greater, and an oath for confirmation is for them an end of all dispute.
Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath, that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil, where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus, having become High Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.
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