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A Tenacious Life

September 5, 2011

Te•na•cious (verb): holding or grasping firmly; forceful and persistent; holding together firmly; tough or cohesive. Collins English Dictionary

Behold, as for the proud one, his soul is not right within him; but the righteous will live by his faith. Habakkuk 2:4

Your commitment makes a difference. The world right now needs people who have backbone, who persevere through challenging circumstances.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. —Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States

The righteous live not by the mustering of one’s own human courage, but by faith. If you’ve received Jesus, tenacity has been downloaded into your heart. The resurrection power of Jesus is at work in you, and the power of God is looking for areas of expression in your life, but it has to be obtained by a tenacious attitude of faith. Sow to your spirit daily. Remember that you are a spirit being who has a soul and lives in a body. Pray in the Spirit and confess the Scriptures. God’s words are spirit and life (John 6:63), and they will sharpen the places that have been dulled by life.

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 was promised. But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul. Hebrews 10:35-36, 39

Perseverance is its own reward. Though life is brief, it has eternal consequences. Stop living a dull existence and get back into that gritty tenacious life for which you were designed. God can do a lot through one persistent, obedient, faith-filled person!

More than a conqueror,
Pastor Jeff

Copyright © 2011 St. Louis Family Church. All rights reserved. No part of this article may be reprinted or distributed in any form without prior written permission of St. Louis Family Church. Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are from the New American Standard Bible (NASB) Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. “tenacious.” Collins English Dictionary – Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition. HarperCollins Publishers. Dictionary.com