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papa Ema

PERSEVERING WITH FAITH AND DILIGENCE IN THE LIFE OF SALVATION

May 21, 2025 · papa Ema

DEFINITION

Diligence is the care, application, promptness, and perseverance in carrying out one's duties and pursuing spiritual goals.

Perseverance refers to the firmness, constancy, and tenacity in pursuing that goal, which leads one not to give up despite obstacles and trials.

Salvation, though freely offered through faith and requiring believers' commitment, can be lost along the way. The apostle Paul explains in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 that the world is in a race toward heaven. He uses the metaphor of a race to describe the believer's journey on earth. This kind of race is a marathon, physically characterized by distance, fatigue, and dehydration, among other things. Parallels also exist on the spiritual level.

PHYSICAL OBSTACLES: A LITERAL RACE

  1. Fatigue and exhaustion: a tired body lacks the energy to keep running (Job 33:14-19).

  2. Difficult terrain: King Solomon says in Ecclesiastes 9:11 that the race is not to the swift [...]; for time and chance happen to them all.

  3. Lack of training: experience is a way of remembering past victories and having confidence as we look to the future (Psalm 77:12-15).

  4. Poor equipment: keeps the runner from finishing the race. It can weigh the runner down, slow them, or injure them.

  5. Dehydration and poor nutrition: physical condition is vital for starting and properly finishing any kind of race.

SPIRITUAL OBSTACLES: THE RACE OF FAITH

  1. Sins and guilt: these are illustrations of spiritual fatigue that keep believers from continuing their race toward salvation. Yet the Lord asks all who are weary and burdened to come to Him, to lay down their load, and to take up His light yoke (Matt. 11:28-30).

  2. Persecutions: trials represent difficult terrain but can produce great things when handled well (James 1:2-4).

  3. Spiritual wounds: can appear in the form of doubt, discouragement, bitterness, resentment, and every kind of malice (Eph. 4:31-32).

  4. Spiritual laziness: weak or total absence of meditation on the Word of God (2 Tim. 3:16), lack of fellowship, and lack of vital communication with God through prayer (1 Thess. 5:17).

  5. Distractions: represent any attachment to the things of the world (1 John 2:15-17).

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