Perseverance - the act or state of continuing, enduring, "sticking with it"

 
 

"Preserve me, O God, for in You I put my trust"
 (Psalm 16:1).

Are you like me in that you often think YOU keep yourself on the Christian road? God says otherwise. It is HE who keeps us and holds us close to Himself, without which we would certainly fall away completely and perish in Hell for an eternity.  

One of the differences between the believer and the unbeliever is that God keeps the believer on the pathway of righteousness.  Although all Christians are prone to wander away from God, are often bewitched by Satan, and fall into grievous sins, God NEVER permit us to finally fall away from Him or lose our salvation. Even when God  brings temporal judgments upon us because of our sins, He still causes us to persevere in Him.

The unbeliever, bewitched by Satan's enchantments, continues for a lifetime in blindness and deceit. The unbeliever cannot see God's true path because he is dead in sin and blind to everything that is righteous. He does not have the Holy Spirit within him to show him the way of righteousness that leads to everlasting life. And he cannot turn over a new leaf or choose, of his own "free will" to become a Christian, because he is dead in his sins (Ephesians 1:1,2). Unless the Holy Spirit quickens the unbeliever, giving him life so he can see his sins and hear God's word, that person will die in sin and suffer the pains of hell forever.

 



We Christians persevere, not because of our own goodness or determination, BUT ONLY (1) because God perseveres in and through us, giving to us what He demands of us;
(2) God perseveres through His decree of election; (3) through the merits and intercession of Christ Jesus; And, (4) the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit who enables us to persevere, (5) AND because of the eternal covenant (agreement) God has made with us, His children, a long time ago: "I will be your God and you shall be my people"
Genesis 17:7; 2 Corinthians 6:16).

       
                                       

 

How is it that when we stick to the faith, that we think it is all of ourselves? We swell with pride. We condemn others that are not a "faithful" as we are. We gloat over our humility, thinking we are able to keep ourselves.
1 Peter 1:5 says we "are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation." That doesn't mean that God keeps us only once during the time when we are "saved" but He keeps us in an on-going, saving salvation from beginning to end.

The basic truth is that we are unable to keep ourselves on the Christian road. IT IS GOD THAT KEEPS US. IT IS GOD THAT PERSEVERES IN US.