Hebrews 10.36 reminds, you need endurance in order to do God’s will and so receive what is promised.
Why do we need endurance to do God’s will? Does anyone feel the need for endurance? Most people trying to do God’s will want more resources; money, people, time, strength but rarely endurance.
Endurance has the idea of persevering through difficulty. In a world of, with God all things are possible, what do we need endurance for anyway?
We might think that we need God’s endurance for accomplishing some great purpose He has assigned to us. This is not the type of endurance God is describing in this passage.
The type of endurance God is describing in Hebrews is enduring our identity as Christians in a world that was persecuting them for following Jesus. These Christians were suffering abuse, violence, imprisonment, and loss of property as a result of identifying themselves as followers of Jesus.
In North America where most people would identify as Christian, this kind of suffering really doesn’t exist. Some fear if they identify with Jesus they will lose their job and so they largely remain silent in the marketplace. This is about all the suffering we currently experience or fear to experience. So do we need endurance?
Notice what endurance is tied to: doing God’s will. It is God’s will that we identify with Jesus in order to be used by Jesus to bring the disenfranchised to Jesus. It is God’s will that none should perish but that all should receive eternal life. The means of accomplishing God’s will is for everyone identifying with Jesus to communicate with everyone not identifying with Jesus that He alone is God.
We need to endure so that we continue to share with others the life, death and resurrection of Jesus the only Savior of the world. Endurance is necessary for overcoming our own apathy at doing this work. Endurance is necessary for continuing on when so few respond. Endurance is necessary to stay faithful when those closest to us became hostile with us for consistently sharing the need to repent and follow Jesus to receive eternal life.
This is what God says is the reward for endurance: eternal life. To receive what has been promised to us we must remain faithful, steadfast, unswerving to the faith and the proclamation of that faith. Faith in Jesus is not a one time event.
Faith in Jesus is a lifelong commitment to knowing Him and making Him known. An eternal lifetime.
