Learning to Persevere 预览

PERSEVERANCE HAPPENS WHEN WE PUT OUR TRUST IN JESUS

Have you ever been in a relationship with someone who said they trusted you, but deep down you knew they didn’t?  

One time, I was hired by a family to be their house sitter. They asked me to watch their house for a week, AND they were going to pay me to do it! I was so excited as a young 20-something to make some easy cash and to eat someone else's (free) food for a week.

All was going well until I started to get a flood of texts and phone calls throughout the day with reminders of what I was supposed to be doing when I was supposed to be doing it, and if I was even really doing what they asked me to do. 

I was so confused because they said that they trusted me, but their actions didn’t reflect their words. They eventually came home early because they were nervous about my ability to take care of their house and decided to take matters into their own hands. (To their credit, I did lose their cat once for a day or two before this incident.)

To be honest, I think a lot of us do this with Christ. While this is an imperfect analogy (because I am not Jesus), I think a lot of us say that we trust in Him, but when it comes down to it, we give Him some control but then begin to doubt and take back that control. We take things back into our own hands.  

As Christians, we were made to persevere. We must put our trust in Him and not ourselves. It will stifle our ability to grow if we refuse to trust God in the hard times and take matters into our own hands.

The Bible passage you are going to read is the story of Abraham and his wife Sarah. They are two of the most important figures in the Old Testament. Both followed God faithfully through a lifetime of challenges and trials. But they couldn’t quite bring themselves to believe one promise God made to them: that they would give birth to a son in their old age. They laughed at the prospect. Once their son Isaac was born, however, Abraham’s trust in God had grown so great that he was willing even to sacrifice that promised son if God asked.

Challenge::   

What is an area of your life that you need to trust God and give Him control today?

Pray and ask Him to take control and choose to trust Him with not only your words but actions.