Matthew 10:22, “You will be hated by all because of My name, but it is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved.”

Hebrews 10:35-36, “Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.”

They Showed It Can Be Done

When he first began playing his guitar and singing, Elvis Presley’s schoolmates derisively coined a term to describe its bad quality: “Elvised it.” Later the teenage Presley repeatedly drove a company truck past the Memphis Recording Service before scrounging the courage to record a song he had written for his mother.

Eighteen years elapsed from the time Columbus conceived his voyage of discovery and fulfilled it by weighing anchor in Palos Bay. Eighteen years of poverty, ridicule, and disappointment.

Elena Bonner typed and edited as her husband, Andrei Sakharov, wrote his memoirs, which they smuggled from the Soviet Union. As he wrote, the KGB often stole the writing. It would simply vanish. On one occasion, when he learned of a particularly severe loss, Sakharov “had the expression of a man who has just learned of the death of someone close to him,” Elena wrote. After a few days, however, he sat at his desk and rewrote the material.

Why then would we refuse our faith just because it makes demands on our time, talent, and treasure? Or refuse a new challenge because “we have never done that before”? Or get discouraged because we sang or taught badly, or it seems we are closer to our goals than we were years ago? If Christians have a talent for anything, it should be to finish what they begin. Jesus did.

Courtesy of Speaker’s Sourcebook of New Illustrations by Virgil Hurley copyright © 1995 by Word, Incorporated. Used by permission.

*Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960,1962,1963,1968,1971,1972,1973,1975,1977,1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Applicable Quotations

There is no royal road to anything. One thing at a time, all things in succession. That which grows fast withers as rapidly; that which grows slowly endures. – J.G. Holland

Patience is the art of concealing your impatience. – Jones

There is not such thing as preaching patience into people unless the sermon is so long they have to practice it while they hear. – Beecher

You have received Christ; persevere in receiving him. You have come to trust him; keep on trusting him. You hang about his neck as a poor, helpless sinner; remain hanging there. Abide in him. – Spurgeon