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Reality of Purpose or the Frustration of Achievement Part 3 “Endurance”

Romans 5:3-4 And not only that, but we also boast in tribulations, knowing that tribulation works endurance;
and endurance, experience; and experience, hope;
For me this is one of the most necessary keys to doing the will of God. Often I think many people seem to feel that should something be the will of God…pronto, it happens with no effort or sacrifice. Not so!
Just look at the plan of God in the life of Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Samuel, David, and Solomon…etc. Then look at the life of Jesus and John the Baptist and Peter and Paul. In all you see the ‘endurance’ of each.

As I have lived all these years I have seen many start with a flash. They seem the best preachers, pastors, evangelist and servants of the Lord. But as time passes the flower fades and the leaves die and the dreams and promise vanish in the heat of the hot summer of difficulty. Has this happened to you? Have you lost sight of the call of Jesus in your life? Have you let the weeds grow in your garden? Have you not fertilized the dream and calling with the water of faith and endurance. Has your calling faded as you have become focused on family and job and money and success?
Oh, the pain of diminished expectations. I know so many friends that have settled of the second or third or tenth level of obedience to the call of Jesus. These may have had success in money or fame or family or material things but the haunting feeling of emptiness lies deep within. I have found endurance is the key to doing the will of God. It is not listening to the critic or the whisper of failure or the scream of this being impossible but just getting up day by day and taking one step at a time as you press forward to do what Jesus has called you to do. Let nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing keep you from going forward. Always, always, always, always onward, forward to ‘DO’ what Jesus has called you to do. You may accomplish many things, gather many honors but should you not do what Jesus has called you and commissioned you to do you will feel that pain and empty place inside. It is in struggle and conflict that the victory is won. No matter what your age. Refocus and get inline with the will of God. I met one awesome lady in West Africa. She was a powerful missionary. As a young lady she had felt the call of Jesus to be a missionary overseas. She did not stay focused but fell in love in college and married. She left her calling for a husband and family and success. But always the haunting call of Jesus was with her. She served in church and supported missions but then late in life her husband died. She looked at life and still felt that call. She sold everything and flew to Africa and began a ministry for Jesus. I will never forget her face and the glow on her. I now forget her name but not the glory on her. She was a mighty woman of God. The call was delayed but not lost. Some of you made youthful commitments…it is now time to answer the call. As long as you live it is not too late. Many have said ‘When I make money I will support …a certain mission or ministry or church or person.’ But you have never put your wealth to work in the Kingdom. Start now!
You have given excuses for not doing your calling, now no excuses make that decision that for as long as you live you will keep your focus and live and pray in the direction you know in your heart you are to go in.
I have carried a twelve-foot cross in every nation on earth, over one and a half times around the world at the equator.

I have learned in walking with the cross to just stay committed to the call of Jesus. I have not let jail, jungles, deserts, wars or praise keep me from pressing on. A nation may deny me a visa but I keep applying and trying and seeking a way in. Year after year I press forward. The road may be long and the mountains high and the way tough but I go on one step at a time day by day and month by month and year after year. What are you doing to ‘do’ the will of God? Have you got discouraged? I believe endurance is a subject you hear little about in modern preaching and teaching but it is important.
When you endure you move forward. Sure it my only be an inch but it is forward. Next week it may be a foot. Next month it may be a mile. Then the breakthrough comes and the next year you go a thousand miles…! Press on, endure in the Name of Jesus. Don’t give God and excuse but your ‘best’! The following are some scriptures that will help burn ‘endurance’ into your soul and spirit.
Luke 21:19 “By your endurance you will win your lives.
Romans 15:4 For all that was written of old has been written for our instruction, so that we may always have hope through the power of endurance and the encouragement which the Scriptures afford.
Romans 15:5 And may God, the giver of power of endurance and of that encouragement, grant you to be in full sympathy with one another in accordance with the example of Christ Jesus,
1 Corinthians 13:7 She knows how to be silent. She is full of trust, full of hope, full of patient endurance.
2 Corinthians 1:6 But whether we are in tribulation, it is for your encouragement and salvation, wrought in the endurance of the same sufferings which we also suffer,
2 Corinthians 6:4 but in everything commending ourselves, as servants of God, in great endurance, in afflictions, in hardships, in distresses,
2 Corinthians 12:12 The signs indeed of the apostle were wrought among you in all endurance, signs, and wonders, and works of power.
Colossians 1:11 strengthened with all power, according to the might of his glory, for all endurance and perseverance with joy;
1 Thessalonians 1:3 unceasingly remembering of you the work of the faith, and the labor of the love, and the endurance of the hope, of our Lord Jesus Christ, in the presence of our God and Father,
2 Thessalonians 1:4 so that we ourselves make our boast in you in the assemblies of God for your endurance and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations, which ye are sustaining;
2 Thessalonians 3:5 and the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God, and to the endurance of the Christ.
1 Timothy 6:11 But thou, O man of God, flee these things, and pursue righteousness, piety, faith, love, endurance, meekness of spirit.
2 Timothy 3:10 But thou hast been thoroughly acquainted with my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, long suffering, love, endurance,
Titus 2:2 aged men to be temperate, grave, sober, sound in the faith, in the love, in the endurance;
Hebrews 6:12 so that you may not become half hearted, but be imitators of those who through faith and patient endurance are now heirs to the promises.
Hebrews 10:36 For you need endurance so that, having done the will of God, you may receive the promise.
Hebrews 12:1 Therefore, surrounded as we are by such a vast cloud of witnesses, let us fling aside every encumbrance and the sin that so readily entangles our feet. And let us run with patient endurance the race that lies before us,
James 1:3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.
James 1:4 Let endurance have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
James 5:11 Remember that we call those blessed who endured what they did. You have also heard of Job’s patient endurance, and have seen the issue of the Lord’s dealings with him–how full of tenderness and pity the Lord is.
2 Peter 1:6 along with knowledge, self-control; along with self-control, power of endurance;
2 Peter 1:7 along with power of endurance, godliness; along with godliness, brotherly affection; and along with brotherly affection, love.
Revelation 1:9 I John, your brother, and a sharer with you in the sorrows and Kingship and patient endurance of Jesus, found myself in the island of Patmos, on account of the Word of God and the truth told us by Jesus.
Revelation 2:2 I know thy works and thy labour, and thine endurance, and that thou canst not bear evil men; and thou hast tried them who say that themselves are apostles and are not, and hast found them liars;
Revelation 2:3 and thou didst bear, and hast endurance, and because of my name hast toiled, and hast not been weary.
Revelation 2:19 “I know your works, your love, faith, service, patient endurance, and that your last works are more than the first.
Revelation 3:10 Because thou didst keep the word of my endurance, I also will keep thee from the hour of the trial that is about to come upon all the world, to try those dwelling upon the earth.
Revelation 13:10 If anyone has captivity, he will go into captivity. If anyone is with the sword, he must be killed. Here is the endurance and the faith of the saints
Revelation 14:12 Here is an opportunity for endurance on the part of God’s people, who carefully keep His commandments and the faith of Jesus!”
Matthew 17:17 “O unbelieving and perverse generation!” replied Jesus; “how long shall I be with you? how long shall I endure you? Bring him to me.”
Matthew 24:13 But he who endures to the end, the same will be saved.
Mark 4:17 And have no root in themselves, and so endure but for a time: afterward, when affliction or persecution ariseth for the word’s sake, immediately they are offended.
Mark 8:31 And now for the first time He told them, “The Son of Man must endure much suffering, and be rejected by the Elders and the High Priests and the Scribes, and be put to death, and after two days rise to life.”
Mark 9:12 “Elijah,” He replied, “does indeed come first and reforms everything; but how is it that it is written of the Son of Man that He will endure much suffering and be held in contempt?
Mark 13:13 You will be hated by all men for my name’s sake, but he who endures to the end, the same will be saved.
Luke 17:25 But first He must endure much suffering, and be rejected by the present generation.
Romans 9:22 What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath made for destruction,
1 Corinthians 4:11 To this very moment we endure both hunger and thirst, with scanty clothing and many a blow.
1 Corinthians 4:12 We toil, working with our own hands. When people curse us, we bless. Being persecuted, we endure.
1 Corinthians 6:7 To say no more, then, it is altogether a defect in you that you have law-suits with one another. Why not rather endure injustice? Why not rather submit to being defrauded?
1 Corinthians 9:12 If other teachers possess that right over you, do not we possess it much more? Yet we have not availed ourselves of the right, but we patiently endure all things rather than hinder in the least degree the progress of the Good News of the Christ.
1 Corinthians 10:13 No temptation has taken you except what is common to man. God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted above what you are able, but will with the temptation also make the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.
2 Corinthians 1:6 and whether we be in tribulation, ‘it is’ for your comfort and salvation, that is wrought in the enduring of the same sufferings that we also suffer; whether we are comforted, ‘it is’ for your comfort and salvation;
2 Corinthians 1:8 For we don’t desire to have you uninformed, brothers, concerning our affliction which happened to us in Asia, that we were weighed down exceedingly, beyond our power, so much that we despaired even of life
1 Thessalonians 3:1 So when we could endure it no longer, we decided to remain behind in Athens alone;
1 Thessalonians 3:5 For this reason I also, when I could no longer endure the uncertainty, sent to know the condition of your faith, lest perchance the Tempter might have tempted you and our labor have been lost.
2 Thessalonians 1:4 so that we ourselves boast about you in the assemblies of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions which you endure.
2 Timothy 1:8 Therefore don’t be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner; but endure hardship for the Good News according to the power of God,
2 Timothy 2:3 You therefore must endure hardship, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.
2 Timothy 2:10 Therefore I endure all things for the chosen ones’ sake, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.
2 Timothy 2:12 If we endure, we will also reign with him. If we deny him, he also will deny us.
2 Timothy 4:3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears
2 Timothy 4:5 But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.
Hebrews 10:32 But remember the former days, in which, after you were enlightened, you endured a great struggle with sufferings;
Hebrews 11:25 having determined to endure ill-treatment along with the people of God rather than enjoy the short-lived pleasures of sin;
Hebrews 12:2 looking to Jesus, the author and perfecta of faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising its shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Hebrews 12:7 It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as with children, for what son is there whom his father doesn’t discipline?
Hebrews 12:20 (For they could not endure that which was commanded, And if so much as a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned, or thrust through with a dart:
Hebrews 13:22 But I exhort you, brothers, endure the word of exhortation, for I have written to you in few words.
James 1:12 Blessed is the man who endures temptation, for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord promised to those who love him.
James 5:11 Behold, we call them blessed who endured. You have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the Lord in the outcome, and how the Lord is full of compassion and mercy.
1 Peter 2:19 For it is commendable if someone endures pain, suffering unjustly, because of conscience toward God.
1 Peter 2:20 For what glory is it if, when you sin, you patiently endure beating? But if, when you do well, you patiently endure suffering, this is commendable with God.
Revelation 2:3 You have perseverance and have endured for my name’s sake, and have not grown weary.
Revelation 2:10 Dismiss your fears concerning all that you are about to suffer. I tell you that the Devil is about to throw some of you into prison that you may be put to the test, and for ten days you will have to endure persecution. Be faithful to the End, even if you have to die, and then I will give you the victor’s Wreath of Life.
Revelation 3:10 Because you kept my command to endure, I also will keep you from the hour of testing, which is to come on the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth.
Genesis 33:14 Let my lord, I pray thee, pass over before his servant: and I will lead on softly, according as the cattle that goeth before me and the children be able to endure, until I come unto my lord unto Seir
Exodus 18:23 If you will do this thing, and God commands you so, then you will be able to endure, and all of these people also will go to their place in peace
Esther 8:6 For how can I endure to see the evil that would come to my people? How can I endure to see the destruction of my relatives?”
Job 8:15 He shall lean on his house, but it shall not stand. He shall cling to it, but it shall not endure.
Psalms 9:7 But the LORD shall endure for ever: he hath prepared his throne for judgment.
Psalms 30:5 For his anger endures but a moment; in his favor is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.
Psalms 72:17 His name endures forever. His name continues as long as the sun. Men shall be blessed by him. All nations will call him blessed.
Psalms 81:15 The haters of the LORD should have submitted themselves unto him: but their time should have endured for ever
Matthew 10:22 ye shall be hated of all on account of my name. But he that has endured to the end, he shall be saved
Matthew 24:13 but he that has endured to the end, he shall be saved.
Mark 13:13 And ye will be hated of all on account of my name; but he that has endured to the end, he shall be saved
Romans 9:22 What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath made for destruction,

Pilgrim followers of Jesus,

Arthur and Denise Blessitt

Luke 18:1