Ever need reassurance trying to faithfully persevere through times of uncertainty, perplexity, or persecution?
Both Israel in the Old Testament and the Apostle Paul in the New certainly experienced that feeling.
In What the Bible is all About, Dr. Henrietta C. Mears writes concerning Israel and the prophet Malachi:
“By this time, a hundred years or more had passed since the Jews had returned to Jerusalem after the captivity in Babylon. Malachi is the last prophet to speak to Israel in her own land…The first enthusiasm after the return from Babylon had spent itself. Following a period of revival (Nehemiah 10:28-39), the people had become cold religiously and lax morally. The prophet Malachi came as a reformer…He dealt with a people perplexed, with spirits failing, whose faith in God seemed to be in danger of collapse” (page 347).
Have you ever felt that way? Needing the encouragement to stay the course even when an expectation failed? Or, to be reassured everything will be all right after having spent all your enthusiasm believing things would be different, yet they haven’t changed—or maybe even became worse?
Paul spoke in 2 Corinthians 4 regarding the need to stay the course, sustaining your faith through all such jumble. And though Malachi exhorted his hearers to “remember the law of Moses…,” it was Christ and His New Covenant that were Paul’s source of strength and sustenance in times of perplexity and persecution (see 2 Corinthians 3; 2 Corinthians 4:8-11).
“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day” (2 Corinthians 4:16 ESV).
How did Paul sustain his faith, persevere through times of uncertainty, and stay the course?
“… we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:18 KJV).
To sustain our faith our eyes must be fixed on the unseen things beyond; those glorious things of the Spirit the flesh cannot behold.
When we secure our stare on the unseen, recognize present afflictions as momentary, and see today’s perplexities as springboards to greater understandings tomorrow—we stay the course towards eternity.
