“By your endurance you will gain your lives.” (Luke 21:19)
What is endurance? According to the Olive Tree Enhanced Strong’s dictionary: ὑπομονή hypomonē, translated endurance, is “the characteristic of a man who is not swerved from his deliberate purpose and his loyalty to faith and piety by even the greatest trials and sufferings.”
When the disciples were admiring the Temple, Jesus told them that the Temple is to be destroyed. They wanted to know when these things would happen but Jesus gave them much more than they asked for, he told them how things will be in the world until his return.
Imagine that your leader has said that he is going to depart from you at the hands of men. He tells you that you are going to be persecuted, beaten, put in prison and undergo much suffering for his name sake. Yet, he has promised to return but does not tell you when. However, he promised that if you endure, you will gain eternal life in the kingdom of God. This my friends is the Christian life.
I have not been persecuted to the level of the early church but I have been persecuted while doing street evangelism. I have not undergone trials and sufferings to the level that I have read about amongst the believers in the early church but I do undergo many trials and sufferings that test my loyalty to faith in Jesus Christ.
Tomorrow is the last day of the year 2020. This has not been an easy year. I have spent much of this year isolated from friends, family and the church. This journal is public, therefore, I shall not go into detail about the trials presently occurring in my life. However, we are going through trials and suffering nonetheless. I shall continue in my loyalty to Jesus Christ because my hope is not in this life only but in the life which is to come, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting, Amen.
