SPIRITUAL TENACITY

"Be still, and know that I am God." Psalm 46:10. Oh boy have I had to live this verse over the past weeks.

Tenacity is more than endurance, it is endurance combined with the absolute certainty that we will find what we are looking for. Tenacity is more than hanging on. Being too afraid to fall off may produce “hanging on”. Tenacity is the supreme effort of a man refusing to believe that his hero, Jesus Christ, is going to be conquered. The greatest fear a man has is not that he will be damned, but that Jesus Christ will be undone. The greatest fear is that the things Christ stood for - love and justice and forgiveness and kindness among men - will not win out in the end. Then comes the call to spiritual tenacity, not to hang on and do nothing, but to work deliberately on the certainty that God is not going to be overthrown. God watches over His word to perform it.

If our hopes are being disappointed just now, it means that they are being changed or altered to please God. God will answer your prayer better than you can think or imagine. One of the greatest strains in life is the strain of waiting for God. "Because you have kept the word of my patience." Revelation 3:10

To help in your willingness to be tenacious, dwell on this fact. The mainspring of Paul's service is not love for men, but love for Jesus Christ. If we are devoted to the cause of humanity, we shall soon be crushed and broken-hearted, for we shall undoubtedly meet with the ingratitude of men. If, however, our motive is love to God, no ingratitude can hinder us from serving our fellow men. Notice the ingratitude is still there. It is a fact of life. However, the difference is the focus, the motive, the target. Our devotion must be to God.

Paul's realization of how Jesus Christ had dealt with him is the secret of his determination to serve others. Paul says a few words to the effect of…"I was before a perjurer, a blasphemer, an injurious person"…no matter how men may treat me, they will never treat me with the spite and hatred with which I treated Jesus Christ. Realize that Jesus Christ has served us to the end of our meanness, our selfishness, and sin. Now, no meanness exacted upon us by man can exhaust our determination to serve men for His sake.

Remain spiritually tenacious.

With this thought in mind I want you to think with me about your passions, your drive, your goal. What engulfs your mind and energies to the point of being carried away? Have you ever been carried away for God? "She has created a good work on Me." Mark 14:6

God deserves a passion, a relationship with you that is beyond human love. If what you are experiencing with God come natural to you, I recommend you step it up a notch. God desires the super-natural with you. If you find yourself always in control, knowing what is coming, always discreet, always wise, always sensible and calculating, you are not in love with God. You may be in “affection” with Him. Dare to be beyond yourself with God.

Ask yourself, as I do, have I ever sensed a desire to do something for God besides the things that are my duty? Do I do things for God besides the things that are useful? We have to get rid of this notion - "Am I of any use?" and make up our minds that we are not, and we may be near the truth. It is never a question of being of use, but of being of value to God Himself. Have I ever realized that I can bring to God things that are of value to Him? In the middle of a hectic day with all sorts of practical things that need doing, can I daydream about the magnitude of His Redemption? Do I realize that there are things that I can do, not divine things, not colossal things which could be recorded as marvelous, but ordinary, simple human things which will give evidence to God that I am abandoned to Him? Have I ever produced in the heart of the Lord Jesus what Mary of Bethany produced?

"Then Peter began to say unto Him, Lo, we have left all, and have followed Thee. . . ." Mark 10:28

God wants you to know that abandonment is for Himself, and not for what you will get from it. Beware of an abandonment which has the commercial spirit in it. Clear yourself of thoughts like, "I am going to give myself to God because I want to be delivered from sin, because I want to be made holy." The result of being right with God is great, but that spirit of trade or barter is not of the essential nature of Christianity. Abandonment is not for anything at all. We have got so commercialized that we only go to God for something from Him, and not for Himself. It is like saying, "No, Lord, I don't want you, I want myself; but I want myself clean and holy; I want to be put in your show room and be able to say - 'This is what God has done for me.'" If the only reason we give up something to God is because we want more back, then there is nothing right in our abandonment; it is miserable commercial self-interest.

Salvation is not merely deliverance from sin. The salvation of God is deliverance out of self. Furthermore, if out of self then into union with Himself. In our abandonment we give ourselves over to God just as God gave Himself for us, without any hidden agenda. If we truly live our life as taken up with God, then the consequence of abandonment never enters into our outlook.

There are times when it seems as if God watches to see if we will give Him the abandoned gestures of how genuinely we do love Him. Being abandoned to God is of more value than personal holiness. Personal holiness focuses the eye on our own goodness; there is a trap. There we can be greatly concerned about the way we walk and talk and look. We care about what other think and we act fearful lest we offend God. Perfect love casts out all that fear and concern when once we are abandoned to God. When we are abandoned to God, He works through us all the time.

Look up the definition of “devotion” Joshua 6:18 with regard to this thought of abandonment. You will find an interesting term meaning to destroy so as to be unrecognizable from the original look or purpose. Now apply that to youself. Are you devoted to Christ?