The Principle Of Holding On Exemplified By Christ's Life

Luke 9:62  And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.

Not only did our LORD Insist on this...

He Emphasized it in His life. 

For all His meekness, Nothing Could Divert Him from the Allotted Path of His vocation. 

Think, for instance, of that day when He was summoned to the bed of Jairus' daughter. 

In the crowded street a woman touched Him, and He instantly felt that "virtue had gone out of him." 

But the original is far more striking in the light it sheds upon the Lord...

He felt that the Power had gone out of Him. 

All of us are familiar with such seasons, when Power seems to be utterly exhausted. 

In such seasons we cannot face the music; the grasshopper becomes a Burden. 

And the Beautiful thing about our LORD is how, after such an experience as that...

He Held To It In Quiet Trust On GOD. 

He knew, in all its strength, the recurring temptation to give over. 

He had to Reinforce His Will Continually for the Great Triumph of Continuing. 

Through days of weakness...

Through seasons of exhaustion...

Through hours when His soul was sorrowful unto death...

He Held To The Task Given Him Of GOD. 

It is Very Easy to Hold On when we are Loved and Honored and Appreciated...

When our strength is equal to our problem...

When the birds are singing in the trees...

But to Hold To It when All the sky is Dark is the Finest Heroism in the world,...

And that was the Heroism of the LORD.  

~George Morrison 

All Things Are Possible To Him That Believeth!

The "all things" do not always come simply for the asking, for the reason that God is ever seeking to teach us the way of faith... 

And in our training in the faith life there must be room for the trial of faith, the discipline of faith, the patience of faith, the courage of faith,...

And often many stages are passed before we really realize what is the end of faith, namely, the victory of faith.

Real moral fiber is developed through discipline of faith. 

You have made your request of God, but the answer does not come. What are you to do?

Keep on believing God's Word; never be moved away from it by what you see or feel, and thus as you stand steady, enlarged power and experience is being developed. 

The fact of looking at the apparent contradiction as to God's Word and being unmoved from your position of faith make you stronger on every other line.

Often God delays purposely, and the delay is just as much an answer to your prayer as is the fulfillment when it comes.

In the lives of all the great Bible characters, God worked thus. 

Abraham, Moses and Elijah were not great in the beginning, but were made great through the discipline of their faith...

And only thus were they fitted for the positions to which God had called them.

For example, in the case of Joseph whom the Lord was training for the throne of Egypt, we read in the Psalms:

The word of the Lord tried him.

It was not the prison life with its hard beds or poor food that tried him...

But it was the word God had spoken into his heart in the early years concerning elevation and honor which were greater than his brethren were to receive...

It was this which was ever before him, when every step in his career made it seem more and more impossible of fulfillment...

Until he was there imprisoned, and all in innocence, while others who were perhaps justly incarcerated, were released, and he was left to languish alone.

These were hours that tried his soul, but hours of spiritual growth and development, that, "when his word came" (the word of release), found him fitted for the delicate task of dealing with his wayward brethren, with a love and patience only surpassed by God Himself.

No amount of persecution tries like such experiences as these. 

When God has spoken of His purpose to do, and yet the days go on and He does not do it, that is truly hard...

But it is a discipline of faith that will bring us into a knowledge of God which would otherwise be impossible.