Perseverance

Our theme for this fall is “perseverance.”  As a church family we have made it through a very challenging season and we are seeing the fruit of a lot of hard work.  Individually, each of us has a story of the challenges of the last year.  We’ve faced difficulties and struggles in our families and our own lives.  After all of that, aren’t we owed a season of smooth sailing?  Aren’t we entitled to a time of relaxation?  However, there are two forces that keep us in the fight: this broken world and the call of God.  Our broken world will continue to present hardships.  God continues to call us to grow to be more like his Son.

The kind of perseverance that the brokenness of the world and the call of God requires is great.  It is a perseverance that is not native to us.  But it is given abundantly by our Father in heaven.  Here’s what the Canons of Dort, one of our doctrinal standards, has to say: “We who have been converted could not remain standing in this grace if left to our own resources. But God is faithful, mercifully strengthening us in the grace once conferred on us and powerfully preserving us in it to the end.”  That is how and why we can persevere.  We have a faithful God who daily and abundantly gives us the grace and mercy to persevere.