Hello, and welcome to Enbolden, living a bold Christian life. I'm Chris Shutter, an ordinary Christian living with and learning about an extraordinary God. I hope you enjoy today's Hold the Line episode hosted by my husband, Pod Shutter. Today's message comes from the Old Testament book of Isaiah, chapter 40, verses 28 through 31, and it's titled Grinding with Hope.
Hope. What is hope really? It's usually paired with dreams as in hopes and dreams. But that combination phrase lessens and kind of cheapens the real power and impact of hope defined in the Bible and promised by God.
A dream is whimsical, theatrical, and kind of imaginary. Hope from a Christian perspective is rooted in a foundational promise. From God, hope is ambitious, assertive, and seeped in God's hope for his people. Nothing locks in the promise of hope for me better than this verse from Isaiah 40, 28 through 31.
Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.
He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youth grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall. But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles.
They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not be faint. Grinder. Amongst my friends, that's a title earned by time in the pressure cooker of challenges and battles.
A badge of honor accomplished and proudly worn from difficult and trying times in life, in business and under fire. The Bible tells us that those times will come for all of us. We know and have been taught in scripture that extreme heat and pressure are the only things that can shape and sharpen iron. I've got a friend who offers this charge to me when I'm in it deep.
The only way through it is through it. Short and sweet. Put your head down. Grind it out.
Do what needs to be done for as long as you need to. And you will come out the other side. No shortcuts, no substitutes, no opt-outs, no procrastinating. Do what needs to be done.
Do the best you can and take care of business. Make the pain and suffering work for your benefit to make a strong you for better days ahead. That's hope. If you do the work and grind it out, it will get better.
It's a process. And it's a promise. But you got to do the hard work. It won't stay bad or hard forever.
That's God's promise for all of us. Do the work, put in the time, stay connected to the Lord and make the commitment to hold the line. Stay the course and stand firm in your convictions and commit. Remembering most of all that God works on his timeline, not ours.
The New Testament is full of hope, delivered through Jesus' teaching and promises lived out amongst his followers. Who's a better example of a grinder than the Apostle Paul? He is the New Testament supergrinder. Once known as Saul, when he became Paul and his scales fell away from his eyes, his life became a one-man testament to grinding it out for the Lord's promise of salvation.
Shipwrecked, arrested, beaten, imprisoned, and tortured. There was no quit in Paul's mission of spreading God's promise. Some of the most empowering texts in the Bible come from the hands of Paul and the promises of God's hope, power, salvation, and renewal. Paul inspires Timothy to stay strong of faith and strong in conviction in the battle for hearts and minds.
Paul encourages and challenges Timothy to hold the line for God's promises for his congregation. Paul is a mission-driven machine, an example for all of us of a grinder for God. Take a look at this verse from Romans 5 verses 1 through 4. Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.
And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character, and character hope. With hope comes everyone's desired outcome, peace. Isn't that the goal of our aspirational yearning and grinding?
A place of deserved rest, peace, comfort, and love? And isn't that the end goal? That accomplishment always much sweeter when we have earned it with hard work, perseverance, suffering, and clenching on to the promise of God's reward for our lives. I'd love to hear from you and find out more about how you are living out your bold Christian life.