The Crown of Life Awaits.

There is no sugar-coating our life here and now.

Jas 1:12  Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.

Endures.

Dictionary definition- experience exertion, pain, or hardship without giving up.  Accept somebody or something that is extremely disagreeable. Survive over a period of time when faced with difficulties.

If you want a candy-coated life with everything sweet and good, everything desirable and right, you will not find that here on earth on any long term basis, you just won't.

Even the closest of the close to Jesus Christ our Savior did NOT lead a life wrapped up in pleasant things. They suffered terribly.

They suffered. They endured pain, they endure hardship, the endured the extremely disagreeable and they survived for a long time confronted with intense difficulties. This is the life of a Christ follower and it's an ENDURANCE way of life.  It is taking all the hardships- and there will be many- and making the best of them by choosing to look towards the prize of life.

A lot of things can be endured when there is hope.

Hope exists whether or not we allow ourselves to believe in that hope. Choosing not to believe in the hope doesn't make that hope disappear. I can't force anyone to believe in the hope of eternal life. I can tell them about the hope and how all of Christ's followers, all of God's chosen patriarchs, prophets and people that held fast to Him and His truth- all of these people lived with the same hope- eternal life in Christ, being at one in agreement with God. Not a single person belonging to God fails to believe in the eternal reward that awaits.

You see, what they choose to believe gives their life the clarity it needs in such a turbulent existence. If we place our hope in ourselves we open ourselves up to extreme disappointment, to utter despair. If we place our hope in Christ we open ourselves up to His life, and He triumphed, He overcame all the darkness and evil of this world that would destroy us. He is the life line we must cling to as we are dragged through hours, days, months, years and years of life on this sin filled earth.

We endure by looking towards the prize, the very prize Christ came and preached about, that was His gospel, His good news that He told everyone about. Salvation from evil through Him. We should NEVER lose sight of the reason our Savior came to save us, it was for eternal life, everlasting life, the ultimate of prizes that not even David, Abraham, or Joseph, not Daniel, John, Matthew or Peter received as of yet. They wait in death's sleep for that glorious day they lived for and they will see that glorious day just as we will!

The hope that is in us allows us to endure the seemingly impossible. And by endure I mean it keeps us as Christ's not as any pillar to today's society, held in esteem by all around us. 

Christ's most beloved apostles and disciples were treated like the scum of the earth and viewed as such by the majority- they held no position in life that made others envious of them, that gave them peace and tranquility from all hardship. Their HOPE their ENDURANCE was found in CHRIST and HIS OFFERED HOPE, the good news, the gospels, salvation.

We will have to endure. If you long to be a Christ follower, you endure. You keep your eyes- spiritual and otherwise on the very real prize that awaits us. You make salvation a reality, so real that you can't even imagine losing sight of that ultimate prize offered to us all.

Endure to the end. The CROWN OF LIFE AWAITS.

Know you will suffer now, it's not something odd, know it and endure!

All through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, now and forever!!!!!!!

Amen!