Spiritual Perseverance

Psalm 46:10 Be still, and know that I am God.

The scripture above is very short albeit powerful. Here’s the thing, while is says to Be still, it isn’t saying ‘do nothing’ but rather ‘don’t worry, don’t stress or freak out, don’t give up’. Be still may sound like we are being instructed to be passive but let me assure you, there is nothing passive about standing in spiritual perseverance!

Oswald Chambers said, “Perseverance is more than endurance. It is endurance combined with absolute assurance and certainty that what we are looking for is going to happen. Perseverance means more than just hanging on, which may be only exposing our fear of letting go and falling. Perseverance is our supreme effort of refusing to believe that our hero (the Lord) is going to be conquered.”

I must admit, when I read the line, ‘Perseverance means more than just hanging on, which may be only exposing our fear of letting go and falling’ I felt a tweak of conviction. I have said, “I’m hanging in there” more often that I care to recall when asked how I was getting through a difficult season of my life. Now THAT sounds passive! I believe with all I have in me that God is in control and if you have ever talked to me at all, you’ve heard me say that. I know I’ve written it over and over. I say it to myself every day, not because I need to be reminded but because it is an absolute in my beliefs. Yet, here I am guilty of saying, ‘I’m holding on’ as if my fingertips were wrapped around a pole somewhere above my head and I am dangling in the void. I will make a point not to say that anymore!

and know that I am God that part of the scripture is the key. There is the call to spiritual perseverance. A call not to hang on and do nothing, but to work deliberately, knowing with certainty that God will never be defeated.

The only reason we can stand in spiritual perseverance is because we KNOW our Lord is GOD. If our hopes seem to be experiencing disappointment right now, it simply means that they are being purified. Every hope or dream of the human mind will be fulfilled if it is noble and of God.

One of the greatest stresses in life is the stress of waiting! God’s word brings a promise to those who wait on Him with perseverance, “because you have kept My command to persevere . . .”

Revelation 3:10 'Because you have kept the word of My perseverance, I also will keep you from the hour of testing, that hour which is about to come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth.  

I do not think it coincidence that this scripture comes in the last Book of the Bible.