“...For the joy set before him endured...”
Hebrews 12.2
The instructions from Hebrews 12:1-3 offer strength and encouragement to sustain us through days which demand endurance. Chapter eleven rehearses circumstances and choices made by others, who now offer their witness as a source of encouragement in our race.
Jesus, when talking about end times, asks will the son of man find faith on the earth when he returns and He says the one who endures to the end shall be saved. Our life, as you know, is made up of daily choices that either move us along this path of growth or side line us and our futures.
These first three verses found in Hebrews chapter twelve set our course for running well and enduring. We find practical instructions ……..
lay aside every weight
and the easily entangling sin
Look to Jesus
Find the jouy
Endure our cross
Despise the shame
Consider Him
Endurance is key to our daily walk. Cambridge Commentary states, “Endurance was one of the most needful Christian virtues in times of waiting and of trial.” Endurance can only be kept as we ‘look to Jesus’ and ‘consider Him’. How easy it is to quit when life gets hard. Endurance remains stedfast having committed our lives to the one who judges righteously. Submitted to His will and timing we are able to, by love, endure all things and endure with joy. Endurance holds a joyful and confident expectation, knowing God is at work and all things work together for good!
Reflection from Helps Word Study: While temporal happiness is external and fleeting, true joy is internal and eternal. Biblical joy will even thrive in suffering.
Joy (5479/xará) is completely grace-dependent and therefore circumstance-independent; earthly happiness however is circumstance-dependent. "Happiness" depends on favorable circumstances ("happenings"); joy depends only on knowing God's favor (grace).
Our salvation experience should be one of joy unspeakable and full of glory.
1 Peter 2:8 Weymouth Translation ~
Him you love, though your eyes have never looked on him. In Him, though at present you cannot see him, you nevertheless trust, and triumphant with a joy which is unspeakable and is crowned with glory, while you are securing as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls.
Joyful endurance requires ‘looking’ at something above and beyond our circumstances. We must hear and see from a heavenly perspective. We are invited to come up higher to see things that must take place and we are promised the Holy Spirit will show us things to come. If we lack wisdom, we are instructed to ASK GOD, who gives to all men liberally without scolding or accusing.
Set your mind and keep focused habitually on the things above [the heavenly things], not on things that are on the earth [which have only temporal value]. Colossians 3.2 Amplified
Seeing Him who is invisible fills us with joy and enables us to endure.
Next week we shall consider Him...