Soldiers of the Cross, Persevere!

Point to Ponder: “To fly we have to have resistance.”
            Maya Lin quoted by Jim Sexton

“Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another;” ~ Romans 12:10

From time to time I reflect on those saints who have invested in my life over the years. One man in particular comes to mind.

 If my memory serves me correctly . . . about 40 years ago, my wife and I became acquainted with Del and Lois through their daughter and her husband.  Del and Lois, now with the Lord, were missionaries to France.

 They had spent several years previously in Zaire, Africa in the late ‘50’s during heavy persecution of Christians.  Del shared how God had miraculously sustained his life through a firing squad and evacuation of personnel from their missionary compound.   A book was published about the whole affair called Out of the Jaws of the Lion by Homer Dowdy.

 Over the years we’ve known them, they've shared of their work in France.  While trying to establish an infant church, they encountered social persecution. God nurtured that small work by having nationals converted and continue that work.  They had to leave France for a time due to the failing health of Lois, Del's wife.  After her passing, he returned to France alone and continued to establish the work there.  I remember how he struggled alone with the monthly mailings, letters, budgeting and burdens for young believers and the lost.  But God sustained him even then.

 After a few years, he retired and became involved in Bible Studies with his son-in-law, street witnessing, and volunteer work at Grace Community Church, pastured by John MacArthur, in Panorama City, CA. He was invited to return to Zaire with a missionary team to see the progress of their work 20 - 30 years prior.  In a letter to us, he described how the people remembered him and wanted to honor him and those on the team who had worked so hard to establish a church there and for sharing the good news of Jesus Christ to them. He told of an elderly Christian national worker who had a district about the size of Kansas who ministered to the saints in that area by riding house to house, village to village on a bicycle.  That man was so grateful to these missionaries that, when he heard they were to have a banquet in their honor, he rode his bike approximately two hundred miles to be there.

 Later the following year Del suffered a heart attack and yet improved greatly.  I had the privilege of talking with him over the phone.  He had a new struggle; he still had the desire to minister to those who hadn’t heard the good news yet, but he couldn’t perform as he’d like.  But he blessed me so by saying he was helping stuff envelops for the Grace To You ministry to the glory of God while recovering!  He was so excited about the fact that, at that time, they sent out over 6000 CD's a week of the Sunday sermons.  All his effort were for the lost and the building up of the saints.  His life centered on that theme.

 To be sure he, like all of us, had faults but that didn’t stopped him.  In reference to Watching HeavenWord, he said “Facing heavenward, we're facing home.  My chores took me until 3 p.m. today.  It is a small price to pay for all the TLC that I get.”

 Well, you’re probably saying, “What’s the point?  The point is simple: We will all meet with resistance: in the work place, at home, at church, in our private thoughts as we try to keep our minds on things above.  We will feel like giving up.  We’ll ask, “Is all this really worth it?  Where is the fruit? Where are my true values?” 

Hebrews 10:35 - 39 reads, “Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward.  For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. For, “Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay; “but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.” But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls."

 Just like Del and Lois, we will all abide eternally somewhere.  We don’t just end here.  This isn’t all there is!  Saints persevere! We’re going to fly! “And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.” - Galatians 6:10 

 The trials are for just a little while!  Keep facing Upward. Keep facing Home!