By Bernard Messing
Bernard is the national lead facilitator for SVM2 in Cameroon.
James1:2-4 My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;
Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worked patience.
But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
Obviously, no one can continue to run in the race, stand firm in the struggles of life, labor effectively, or handle the trials of life without endurance or perseverance, and patience.
Let’s define perseverance as “steady persistence in adhering to a course of action, a belief, or a purpose; steadfastness,” endurance as “the act, quality, or power of withstanding hardship or stress,” but in another second definition we define endurance as “the state or act of persevering.”
While they are synonyms and each word carries in it the idea of “continuance,” perseverance lays stress on a given course of action in the face of difficulty or opposition. Endurance perhaps more strongly adds the idea of continuing under resistance or the adversities of life, to carry on in spite of hardships.
Patience refers to the quality of enduring pain, hardship, provocation, or annoyance with calmness. Either perseverance, endurance or patience all are qualities of Christ-likeness.
In Hebrews 12:1 – “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,” the writer teaches us that we have a “great cloud of witnesses surrounding us.” These witnesses are cited in Hebrews 11. In our generation how can we describe the endurance, perseverance, and patience of the following:
- Noah
- Abraham
- Moses
- Joseph
Paul wrote in 2 timothy 2 :3, “endure hardship with us as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No one serving as a soldier gets involved in the civilian affairs-he wants to please his commanding officer.” We all know what a soldier is. What are the marks of a soldier that characterize the Christian worker? a missionary?
A soldier is tough. He endures hardship.
We sometimes hear from certain preachers that the Christian life or even( service )is easy and filled with blessings and with no problems. Here is Paul’s testimony in 2 Corinthians 6:4-10,
But in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses,
In stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in watching, in fasting;
By pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned,
By the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left,
By honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report: as deceivers, and yet true;
As unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and, behold, we live; as chastened, and not killed;
As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.
In the unreached world there are millions of people who have heard little or nothing of Jesus. Millions of people in the unreached world have never seen a church that speak their language. They have never seen a Bible. They have never believed in Jesus. Why? Because no one has ever told them about Him.
That should make us cry,
And pray,
And take action!
The Lord is seeking for young people with a burning desire to preach the good news in places where no one has heard of Christ.
But only a mature person can understand the purpose of God in his life. When sin is still governing someone’s life, it is a clear evidence of immaturity. Only a mature man can do what Moses did. There are nine F’s, or fear factors, every potential candidate for missions or potential message bearer must face as far as responding to his call:
1)Fear of family:
2)Fear of friends:
3)Fear of leaving our comfort zone and fellowship
4)Fear of forces of darkness
5)Fear of lack of finances
6)Fear of the future
7)Fear of famine
8)Fear of failure
9)Fear of missing fun fair
If we can analyze< Fear>”we may define it as
F=false
E=experiences
A=appearing
R=real
Faith is required today among our emerging generation in order to do great things for God!
Let’s define the word faith in one sentence: FOR ALL I TRUST HIM
1)F=for
2)A=all
3)I=I
4)T=trust
5)H=him
Why? Because culture is a way of thinking, feeling and behaving. That explains why any message bearer in our generation needs total faith in God, perseverance and endurance in understanding another culture. To understand the culture therefore, we must:
Learn the local language, observe the customs and actions, copy the new culture, study the new culture. Can a message bearer achieve this without perseverance?
