Endurance

2 Timothy 2 : 1 – 5, You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier. NKJV

Paul teaches us in 1 Corinthians 6 that we are not our own but we have been bought with the price of Jesus’ blood. He goes on to say that we must now choose to glorify God in our body which belongs to Him. Satan loves to tempt believers who ignore or they are ignorant of this truth that Paul taught the Corinthians.

This is the reason Paul warned young Timothy to endure hardship as a good soldier. Since we are soldiers of the Lord and are engaged in a spiritual battle, we must guard our hearts against becoming entangled in the affairs of this temporal life. Remember, the Word tells us to live by faith and to walk by faith. We can only fulfill this if we are keeping the Word of God and honoring it when circumstances push us into reacting in our flesh.

Satan will use the hardness of situations as a weapon to tempt us to harden our hearts against God’s Word or His will in a battle, that he might bring a schism between God and us. We must be wise as serpents but remain harmless as doves while we face the pitfalls of living in a fallen world. Therefore, we must continually keep our eyes on Jesus and keep our hearts attentive to God lest we succumb to the strategies of the Devil and sin.

It’s not that God is tempting us with evil and laughing at us when we hit “a wall” in our life. Let’s look at this in a different light, other than blaming God. Satan was very wise when he caused Adam to sin and placed all of mankind under the curse of sin. The curse of sin has caused every person that has ever been born, including Jesus, to experience great anguish and hardship. Satan was elated to discover that Adam and Eve had fallen for his feeble lies. Since that time Satan has used the adversity of living in a fallen world and the hardness of trials to turn people’s hearts against the Lord during a moment of weakness or anguish. (Job 1 – 2)

If you allow hardness to turn your heart against God’s will and His Word than you open the door for Satan to bring you into a place of offense and can cause you to sin against God in your greatest hour of need. We must be willing to submit to God, resist the Devil and he must flee. Guard your heart against hardness, toward God, because we live in a world that offers us hard battles. This world is not our permanent home, if we have faith in Christ.

Endure hardness as a good soldier,
Pastor Asa Dockery