You Don’t Have To Quit—The Challenge

Life can become unbearably hard in its struggles, temptations, and trials. Being a believer does not exempt one from these. Often holding to faith intensifies them. I never minimize one’s personal difficulties. They are too real. Just because I don’t feel what another feels doesn’t mean that one isn’t hurting. Just because I don’t struggle with what another struggles doesn’t mean his battle is not fierce. Yet, through the years of pastoring, I have put forth this challenge: “If you are weary walking this way, wrung out running this race, fatigued fighting this fight, don’t quit. Consider this: If you could go to heaven for a visit right now, right in the middle of your present crisis, if you would chat and interview those believers who have already made it, you would discover that they, while on earth, had faced the same battles, struggles, and storms that Christians quit over every day.” They faced them. Yet they didn’t quit. Some even faced coliseums, burning at the stake, the rape of their female family members, the theft of all their property, the tearing down of their homes, long incarcerations, and horrible beatings. But, they did not quit. Things, for many, may be rough right now in so many ways exacerbated and inflamed by COVID, economic conundrums, and unrest and uproar in our streets. But, we do not have to quit. It is not a cheap shot. It is the same challenge the writer of Hebrews gave to those who were facing persecution for their faith. “Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.” (Heb 12:4). In modern speak, “You may be having it rough for your faith, but you have not been martyred for it.” We have to understand the context. The writer had just mentioned those who were mocked, beaten, incarcerated, stoned, sawn in two, tempted to give up their faith, pierced with a sword, made homeless and country-less, and brought to abject poverty (Heb. 11:37-38). But, they made it! In fact, the writer says, they fill the seats above the race we run in testimony, witness, and encouragement, that if they made it, so can we. Then, the writer calls our attention to Jesus. Though He faced the worse of all deaths—the Cross, He was not only victorious over its awfulness and the death it brought, He not only endure it, He did so to blaze and mark the trail for us. He has already walked the way we walk, run the race we run, and fought the battles we fight. So, during your hypothetical visit to heaven, talk to Jesus, talk to those of Hebrews 11. They faced even worse than we face. Again, I minimize no one’s conflict, consternation, crisis, or conundrum. I’m just saying “You and I don’t have to quit.” As Pastor Weirsbe said, “It is always too soon to quit.” As Churchill said during the Nazi Luftwaffe’s blitz and bombardment of England, “Never give up!” As the Native American believer said, “Go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on!” As Paul said, “Press towards the mark.” As Jesus said, “He that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved.” Take my challenge. Ask. There’s a multitude that’s made it that say so can you. You don’t have to quit.