22820.021 Your Daily Commitment to Perseverance

“In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness.” (2 Peter 1:5–6, NLT)

I know God has work to do in my heart, and so, I daily ask him to shed the light of his presence into the inner recesses of my heart to show me whatever needs to be changed. Then his Word can prosper and accomplish in my heart whatever is needed to be done to strengthen it for his purposes as the Spirit works within me. As his Word grows in my heart, I am set free. I begin to see the finger of God at work in me and in my circumstances. I learn to trust him, and by the power of the Holy Spirit I am able to put to death all of the sinful desires and works of the flesh that want control over my life. However, this can be a painful process, and sometimes I simply want to jump ship.

There is so much we do not understand and so much for us to learn. It can be daunting. However, I make it my daily goal to concentrate on what I do understand from God’s Word and what he reveals to me along life’s pathway. My desire, plan, and purpose is to do what he has revealed to me in this moment. I want to make sure I am faithful in doing the work assigned to me by God now. By keeping my focus on what God’s Word is telling me, I keep my focus on God’s plans and purposes. The New Testament encourages us with these words: “[May you be] strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience” (Colossians 1:11, NIV).

God’s ways are not our ways. He often uses people and circumstances that we could never have imagined to work out his will in our lives. Solomon said it well, “Just as you cannot understand the path of the wind … so you cannot understand the activity of God, who does all things” (Ecclesiastes 11:5, NLT).

Jesus himself used the same imagery when he told about how a person is born of the Spirit, “The wind blows wherever it wants. Just as you can hear the wind but can’t tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can’t explain how people are born of the Spirit” (John 3:8, NLT).

We cannot understand the path of the wind or the activity of God. However, even though the wind is unseen, we can see manifestations of it when it blows. We see the flag waving in the wind. We see a leaf skip down the street. We see the trees swaying in the summer breeze. There is power in the wind, sometimes slight, sometimes magnificent. When I consider the many places where the wind is mentioned in the Bible, I see God’s power. God used the wind to blow the plague of locusts into Egypt, and then he used it to blow the locusts into the Red Sea. He used the wind to hold back the waters of the Red Sea so the Hebrews could pass over on the dry land. He used the wind to bring quail to feed the people in the wilderness. Psalm 104:3 tells us, “You [God] make the clouds your chariot; you ride upon the wings of the wind” (NLT). God used the sound of the wind when the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples at Pentecost, and they were empowered by the Holy Spirit to accomplish incredible things for the Kingdom. God works in many different ways.

God is still at work through the power of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers today. We need to adjust the sails of our lives to the winds of the Spirit. We must be discerning. We are not to simply sit around waiting for the wind to change so that it is blowing in the direction we might want it to blow. We must finetune our sails to the direction of the Holy Spirit’s and say, “The sails are up, and the power is on!”

In what ways is Son Power currently giving you strength to persevere?

Son Power is the source for perseverance.