The Spiritual Value of Tenacity
Greetings, brothers and sisters. This is Dr. James Perry continuing with our series where we seek to explore the deeper meanings of our relationship with Jesus Christ. Over the years, the heavenly Father has revealed many revelations of spiritual truth to me, and I want to share them with you. This morning we seek to understand the spiritual value of tenacity.
And now, sit back and listen to today's message.
The Spiritual Value of Tenacity
"And he (Jesus) spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought to always to pray, and not faint: ‘‘There was a man in a city, a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man: and there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him saying, Avenge me of mine adversary. And he would not for a while: but afterward he said within himself, though I fear not God, nor regard man; Yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, least by her continual coming she weary me." Luke, Chapter 18, Verses 1 through 5
Brothers and sisters, in today’’s broadcast we consider the spiritual value of tenacity. We live in an imperfect environment and seldom are we able to accomplish anything worthwhile without sustained effort. We know that during various times, we have not always responded to this stimulus of imperfection appropriately, a stimulus that is designed to bring out the best in us. Indeed the stimulus of imperfection is the stimulus that unfolds potentials that perfect our souls.
We know that our characters only change when first there is a desire for it to change, secondly for the appropriate stimulus to change, and lastly we must exercise faith in conjunction with our supreme desire to do the Father’’s will. When we are presented with a stimulus designed to further our character development, we want to take some action to cause the stimuli to stop, especially when we have a strong negative reaction to it. This is similar to accidently touching something that is very hot. We have a reflex that causes us to quickly withdraw our hands from the hot object. And so our first reaction to a disagreeable stimulus is to quickly try to find away for it to be gone.
But this will never do. The stimulus provides an opportunity to choose good over evil; truth over error. And we know that these stimuli do not always yield their treasures right away. We must persevere in the face of resistance in order to overcome the obstacles that stand in the way of our achieving divine perfection. Sometimes, it seems like we are like the little widow in the parable. The door appears locked and we cannot enter. But as we keep knocking the door does open. Knock and the door shall be opened. The door of new character growth requires sincerity, faith, and persistence. And we cannot enter the door without Jesus, for he is the door to the Kingdom of heaven. Sometime it takes awhile for our desires to reach a supreme level, where there are no competing desires. The Father requires all of our loyalty or he will accept none of it. We cannot share our supreme loyalty with anything or anyone else. The doors of eternity and eternal life do not open at the knock of divided loyalties. Only whole-hearted dedicated to doing the Father’’s will opens the door to the kingdom of heaven. If we really desire to enter the spiritual kingdom, we will continue to knock on the door until our faith, sincerity, and desires reach supreme levels.
Scarcely a day goes by that we are not challenged by some moral or spiritual problem in our lives. Brothers and sisters, at the end of every lesson there is a test. The test is not to frustrate us, but to see if we have acquired that particular spiritual value that is needful for further spiritual growth, for that never-ending march towards divine perfection. And these tests will not cease until all lessons have been passed and we stand in the loving presence of our heavenly Father. We must never allow frustration as a result of our sustained efforts to derail our assault on the potential spiritual value to which we are trying to give life. We must remember that whatever the spiritual value, even as we try, we are in the process of birthing divine patience, that all-essential quality that is absolutely necessary for spiritual growth.
Patience is a very valuable spiritual quality for we live in a universe that is delayed by time and handicapped by space. The exercise of patience allows us to move through life with the correct attitude: after we have done all we can do to comply with a given situation, we should adjust and accept it. No matter what situation we are left with, the spiritual values remain, and those meanings of those values come forth to comfort and bring joy to our souls.
Some spiritual stimuli are short in duration. In other cases, the stimuli are long lasting. The short acting stimuli allow us to withdraw the hands of our souls, thus it is not effective in causing those deep character changes. The long lasting spiritual stimuli does not allow us to do so and thus is effective in bringing about the transformation of a spiritual character. The long lasting spiritual stimuli continues until the potential for the correct response arises within our soul, signaling that we have actualized a new character trait. We know that we have grown because not only do we make the right response, but it not longer causes a strong negative reaction within us. We have become more than conquerors.
By the technique of doing the Father’’s will, submitting our will to his will, we are empowered to bring forth the new value that will effectively conquer the spiritual stimuli. When Jesus lived on earth, he was confronted with many long-lasting spiritual stimuli that could have caused him frustration, but his determination to do the Father’’s will caused him to grow in the very face of the stimuli. So the next time we are confronted with a frustrating situation, we should remember that this situation gives us an opportunity to perfect our patience, just one of many character traits that we are called upon to perfect. The exercise of patience maintains our tranquility of spirit, for when we don’’t exercise patience, tranquility vanishes. And when the tranquility of spirit vanishes, so does the joy in the spirit. Loss of tranquility of spirit signals that we have failed to submit our will to the Father’’s will for that particular situation.
This particular failure does not mean that our desire to do the Father’’s will has lessened--rather does it speak to our inability because of immaturity to make a perfect spiritual response. Indeed such a revelation to our souls that we have identified a character flaw should inspire us to eradicate the impatience, and resume the tranquility of the spirit along with its priceless joy. After all we are spiritual children learning how to make perfect spirit responses to the Father’’s will. Patience, patience, and more patience is required. So therefore does the Father provide stimuli that will produce just that. Tenacity will conquer all barriers that stand in the way of our achieving divine perfection. It will allow us to stand "as seeing Him who is invisible."
This concludes today's message on understanding the meaning of the value of spiritual tenacity. We hope you find something in this message to ponder and pray about as you go about your day.
Until next time, this is Dr. James Perry.
Your Kingdom Come ; Your Will Be Done!
Inspirational Messages
By Dr. James Perry
The Spiritual Value of Tenacity
