“Endurance” is an important theme of the scriptures that often gets overlooked by modern Christians. Notice the things for which endurance is the critical ingredient:
To those who by endurance in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; Romans 2:7
For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. Hebrews 10:36
The saying is trustworthy, for:
If we have died with him, we will also live with him;
if we endure we will also reign with him;
if we deny him, he also will deny us;
2 Timothy 2:11–12
According to these passages, “endurance” and “enduring are critical to finally inheriting eternal
life. Sounds pretty important to me! But how do we get endurance, and where does it come from?There’s an interesting and very provocative Greek word behind the English words “endure” and “endurance” in these passages, but it’s somewhat difficult to capture with a single English word. The Greek word is “hupomone.” The older English translations rendered it as “patience” but that doesn’t really capture its meaning.
Hupomone has been more recently translated as: “holding out,” “standing fast,” “endurance,” steadfastness”, “enduring evils,” “courageous active resistance to hostile attack.” In modern slang we could translate it as “hanging-tough.” But this word expresses more than the action of hanging tough; it describes the inner character that is developed from “hanging-tough.” It describes a transformation takes place in a person’s heart.
Perhaps an illustration will help. In the years of drought the thinnest annular rings of a tree are formed, but they are also the hardest and give the tree is true strength. Enduring the drought makes the tree strong. If there are no years of drought the tree will never reach the full strength that it needs to survive the high winds that will inevitably come with a really severe storm. Trials are like the years of drought.
Here’s another illustration: A few months ago, I went to the dentist’s office for a filling. He used the latest high-tech filling material. First he packed it into the space that he had excavated in my tooth. Then he and his assistant put on some heavy-duty eye protection while he shown some kind of weird purple light on the filling material. Within just a few seconds, the material went from a thick paste to a tough, hard surface that was strong enough to immediately chew with. The special light changed the chemical composition and made it extremely strong and hard. And that’s what the various trials do to our hearts. They are like the light that transforms the filling material. But in the case of our hearts they don’t become hard, they become tough and resilient.
And that is why Peter says:
But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. 1 Peter 4:13
And James chimes in:
Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3for you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance (hupomone). 4And let endurance (hupomone) have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. James 1:2–4
Read this one last passage with me:
For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. 5May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus 6that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 15:4-6
Did you catch that? Endurance is a critical ingredient to living a life of hope.
But there’s one last thing in this passage about hanging-tough in the face of life’s trials. Not only does it strengthen our hearts to persevere for eternal life, but it actually makes us more like “the God of endurance and encouragement.”
Hang-tough!
