perseverance on Suffering

In Jonathan Kozol’s book, Amazing Grace , he tells of the struggles and sufferings of people in a community in the Bronx, New York. He is amazed at the courage and resilience he found there. He then ...

A Letter from Exile To understand this section of Revelation, we have to remember that it was written by someone in exile to communities who were suffering for their faith. When we read Revelation 2-...

Preaching Commentary A Letter from Exile To understand this section of Revelation, we have to remember that it was written by someone in exile to communities who were suffering for their faith. Whe...

All the world is full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming.

When we are crushed like grapes, we cannot think of the wine we will become.

You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that c...

Hope is the power of being cheerful in the presence of circumstances we know to be desperate.

There is only one road to true human greatness: the road through suffering.

Introduction Believed to be some of Paul’s last words of his long ministry, 2 Tim. 4:6ff are Paul’s closing remarks to his beloved disciple, Timothy. Imprisoned in Rome by this point, Paul concludes ...

The first three items in Paul’s fruit basket sound very spiritual. Heavenly almost. Very nice for Sundays, at least. But his next one, patience, brings us back down to earth on a Monday. What are we l...

Resilience is the virtue that enables people to move through hardship and become better. No one escapes pain, fear, and suffering. Yet from pain can come wisdom, from fear can come courage, from suffe...

Preaching Commentary Introduction Believed to be some of Paul’s last words of his long ministry, 2 Tim. 4:6ff are Paul’s closing remarks to his beloved disciple, Timothy. Imprisoned in Rome by this...

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? Which Interpretative Lens Should You Use? I have a general rule of thumb when studying a text. If I can read the early Christian commen...

AIM Commentary Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? Which Interpretative Lens Should You Use? I have a general rule of thumb when studying a text. If I can read the early...

Patience is love for the long haul; it is bearing up under difficult circumstances, without giving up or giving in to bitterness. Patience means working when gratification is delayed. It means taking ...

In Romans 8:18, Paul describes the future of those who persevere in the faith: “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us....

With the global coronavirus pandemic in spring 2020, life stopped. Overwhelmed by the threat of a disease we couldn’t stop and for which we didn’t have the hospital capacity, everyone moved work and s...

In spite of sorrow, loss, and pain, our course be onward still; we sow on Burmah's barren plain, we reap on Zion's hill.

Whenever anything disagreeable or displeasing happens to you remember Christ crucified and be silent.

It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.

It is very apparent from the Word of God that He often tries the faith and patience of His people, when they are crying to Him for some great and important mercy, by withholding the mercy sought for a...

God knows our situation; He will not judge us as if we had no difficulties to overcome. What matters is the sincerity and perseverance of our will to overcome them.

If a man have Christ in his heart, heaven before his eyes, and only as much of temporal blessing as is just needful to carry him safely through life, then pain and sorrow have little to shoot at.

God never calls you to a task without giving you what you need to do it. He never sends you without going with you.

[If] your imagination of God is starved then when you come up against difficulties, you have no power, you can only endure in darkness.

I hope someday that God can explain some of the delays to us……but I’m convinced that one of the things He is teaching me, and all of us, is perseverance. In this day and age of everything being “insta...

We must accept life for what it actually is - a challenge to our quality without which we should never know of what stuff we are made, or grow to our full stature.

Life can often feel like a bully, throwing punches at us we didn’t see coming. We get taken out, for a moment. But how we jump back in becomes our decision.

A Tough Way to Start Ministry You don’t have to spend much time on Twitter or Facebook to be reminded that schadenfreude (taking joy from another's misfortune) is alive and well. Depending on w...

The hymnwriter and theologian F. W. Faber writes with beautiful prose the challenges that each one of us faces when it comes to living a life faithfully according to the truth that is within us: M...