Perseverance

II Peter 1:3-11:

3 His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. ⁴ Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

⁵ For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; ⁶ and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; ⁷ and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. ⁸ For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁹ But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.

¹⁰ Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall, ¹¹ and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

What happened to a perfectly good word like perseverance? I went to look it up in the ESV and it is practically non-existent. Now I am sure that the godly men who have put their heart and soul into translating the ESV have a wonderful reason for translating the greek word used in the NIV as perseverance, into the ESV word translated as steadfastness, but perseverance gets to me where it hurts. We live in an age of instant everything; instant pudding, instant cameras, instant money from the cash machines, instant gratification. An interesting study would be to compile a list of everything our not so distant relatives had to wait for and the things we don't have to wait for now at all. Steadfastness is a good word too, I am not really knocking it, but even in sounding out the word perseverance it grinds out like a mule grinding corn, round and round and round again.

This whole passage full of instruction that I frankly need in my life right now, but I want to just touch on this word and the action involved in it-perseverance.

Let's first mention who it is that just said that-Peter! Our impetuous, spur of the moment, mutilator of ears, and denying Peter. Wow. What a difference. How is it that he learned these things mentioned above? May I offer one of the ways, through failure. Jesus looked right at Peter after all was said and done, and asked him if he loved him, three times he asked if he loved him, which is the same amount of times that Peter denied him (John 21). Humble yourself Peter, humble yourself before me, don't think you can do it on your own, Peter. Love me, and know that I love you in spite of it all. Know that I can at any given time look into your eyes, into your heart and see exactly what is in it, and I love you in spite of it all. Now, learn. Learn humble yourself, continually. You fell, you fall, humble yourself, see how much you need Me, and go and feed my lambs. Show them that I love them too. Scenes like these have been a part of my experience for many moons. Failure, humility, seeing myself for who I really am, a sinner saved by grace alone, then seeing Him for who He really is, high and exalted, yet willing and able to look at my heart and love me anyway.

This is what perseverance is made of.......Oh, so waiting for my bridegroom...........Lynn