Blessed endurance

Indeed we count them blessed who endure. You have heard of the perseverance of Job and seen the end intended by the Lord that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful. – James 5v11

It doesn’t have quite the same ring to it as ‘blessed assurance’ does it? But let’s be brutally honest, will we? In real life sometimes that blessed assurance can seem kind of ethereal, distant, and other worldly, can’t it? Sometimes that blessed assurance seems kind of far off. .

Maybe I am the only one who ever feels that way. Maybe spiritual Christians never have a problem with the realities of day to day life. Maybe truly godly people never have to deal with discouragement, despair, disappointment, and depression.

Today’s thought is not for those folks. Today’s thought is for people like me who sometimes have to hold on to raw faith, grit my teeth, and simply endure. Today’s thought is for people like a Christian friend I talked to last night who is struggling to keep their head above water and just survive. Today’s thought is for those who have that blessed assurance, but have a hard time seeing it because it is someplace out on the horizon. Today’s thought is those who need something to get through today and all its ugliness.

‘Indeed we count them blessed who endure.’ While we can never forget that blessed assurance, we also need to not forget the blessed endurance. Who is our example of blessed endurance? ‘You have heard of the patient perseverance of Job.’ Job experienced the blessing of endurance when at the end of his life he saw what the Lord intended – that He is compassionate and merciful.

Who else endured? Read Hebrews 12v2 to find out. Somehow I think that if Someone like Him endured we can’t really expect any less for our lives.

‘Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine! O what a foretaste of glory divine. Heir of salvation purchase of God, born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.’

In reality we can’t separate blessed assurance and blessed endurance. It is that blessed assurance that strengthens us for blessed endurance. We should never feel guilty while enduring. We have a couple of pretty good examples. Dig in; hold on to the raw faith that gives us the blessed assurance, and rest in the fact that there is a blessing in endurance.

Like Job we will see that God is very compassionate and merciful. Like Jesus we will see the joy that is set before us.

Let’s learn the lesson of blessed endurance.