Thursday, September 5 (August 23), 2024
2Cor. 4:1-6; Mt. 24:13-28

“He that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved” [Mt. 24:13].  Notice that salvation is given only to those who endures hardships on the way of the Lord.  This life is a life of hardships, and everyone has to endure something, until the very end.  But our endurance is to no avail whatsoever, unless it is endurance for the sake of the Lord and His holy Gospel.  When you step on the road of the faith and Gospel commandments, you will need much more endurance than before; but from that moment on your endurance brings fruit ─ a crown of victory for you.

The enemy sets a smokescreen in our way, so that only those hardships appear unbearable which we endure for the sake of the Lord ─ while the hardships imposed by the enemy himself, hardships of slavery to sinful passions, seem to us like nothing, even though they are infinitely worse than resistance to sin!  And we get blinded, unable to discern that simple fact… wasting our life in pain and suffering, enduring for the sake of the enemy, to our own peril.

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