A Call to Endure

Pause:

Before you start reading this devotional, take a moment to stop what you’re doing, slow down and focus on Jesus. 

Pray and ask him to open your eyes to see as you read the Scriptures, and to open your ears to hear as you wait on the leading of the Spirit.

Read:

Hebrews 12:1-2: Therefore, since we also have such a large cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every hindrance and the sin that so easily ensnares us. Let us run with endurance the race that lies before us, 2 keeping our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. For the joy that lay before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Going Deeper:

During this pandemic, God has a different race for each of us to run. For some, this is a season where it seems like we’re managing crisis after crisis. For others, there may be new areas of growth or challenge that God is gently leading us into. Regardless, there is a common call: to follow Jesus, hold fast to Him, and listen for his leading. Whether you’re dealing with a call to have hope during tragedy or a call to simply take a couple minutes each day to pray, we all need the same thing: endurance.

Endurance can only come from one place: “the God who gives endurance and encouragement” (Romans 15:5). And God gives us this endurance and encouragement when we ask! Like Paul for the Ephesians, we can pray for ourselves and for each other that you would be “strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, so that you may have great endurance and patience, joyfully giving thanks to the Father” (Colossians 1:11-12). 

What might endurance look like for us now? Though we have more opportunity to pray, we may be neglecting it. Though we may have more time to press into seeking Jesus, we have filled those hours with distractions. What would it look like to commit to setting aside time in prayer, no matter the cost? What would it look like to choose to cry out to God, declaring his goodness and power, even when we feel overwhelmed or weak? In this race, what else is God calling us to pursue passionately, despite the sweat we feel on our faces?

Our Father is for us, happy to encourage us and strengthen us, always teaching us and urging us to live a life worthy of the calling we have received. God sees you, and he has mercy on you! He sees your struggle, your weak flesh, and your barely-burning faith. And yet he promises that he will not cast you aside, but instead will show you more and more care, encouragement, and patience. Even as we fail, he doesn’t scorn us, instead promising us: “He will not break a bruised reed, and he will not put out a smoldering wick” (Isaiah 42:3). This strange season may have prompted you to greater energy—whether out of the Spirit’s leading and joy or out of a desire to have some sort of control in this uncontrollable time of life. For others, however, long days of staying inside (or the stress of these new challenges in general) is leading to lethargy, apathy, and feeling like a smoldering wick that is barely burning. 

Let us keep our eyes on Jesus in this struggle. Let us be strengthened by his strength, by which he endured horrific pain for the joy of knowing and saving us. And let us not forget that he also endured over thirty years of a regular life—thirty years of work, relationships, habits, prayer, and perfect obedience. He is sympathetic and merciful toward us in our own regular lives.

May God grant us endurance. I pray that he would grant us the endurance to fight sin with his powerful strength, until our snare is cast aside. I pray he would grant us the endurance to press into whatever teaching or discipline or sanctification he may have for us, and I pray he would grant us an enduring faith in his good and gentle and loving character through it all. And throughout this unique leg of our race, may we each run with endurance, “so that you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ with one mind and one voice” (Romans 15:6).

Pray:

Respond to God in prayer by speaking to Him about what stood out to you from this passage this morning.

Listen:

What is the Holy Spirit saying to you this morning?

Apply:

What are you going to do in response to what God is saying to you from the text and by the Spirit?