“So don’t throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you need endurance, so that after you have done God’s will, you may receive what was promised” (Hebrews 10:35-36).
In the realm of popular music, there are many artists who have released one immensely popular song and then faded into obscurity. We commonly refer to those artists as “One-Hit Wonders” in recognition of their success with one popular song. But unlike a musical artist who rockets to stardom on the strength of a best-selling song and subsequently disappears, our passage from Hebrews 10:35-36 references a far more tenacious (and important) quality: endurance.
“Endurance” (or perseverance) is hardly a popular subject in today’s age of instant gratification. In the wry observation of one commentator, “Perseverance is one of the great unromantic virtues.” (1) However, this quality is one of the key substantiators of a healthy spiritual life. While endurance in the midst of a trial does not secure our salvation, it often serves as evidence of our faithful commitment to Christ.
One source offers food for thought in this regard: “…the victory of faith is not achieved by one brilliant campaign but a lifetime of patient and faithful service. It is not so much the glory of a promising start that the Lord desires as it is the glory of a faithful finish.” (2) Perhaps this is why the Biblical book of Ecclesiastes tells us, “Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof…” (Ecclesiastes 7:8 KJV).
For instance, the act of completing a task often requires important skills like dedication, hard work, discipline, and the ability to plan ahead. It also may require another important quality: perseverance, or the ability to endure through the difficult stages of a project or assignment. Whether that characteristic is expressed in the face of active persecution or the wearisome routines of daily life, we should not seek to escape such things by denying Christ as some members of the original audience for this epistle apparently sought to do.
This passage thus reveals important spiritual truth: patient endurance in seeking to fulfill God’s will in this life serves to prepare us to “…receive all that he has promised” (NLT). Therefore, we can find encouragement in the following passage from the New Testament epistle of James…
“Blessed are those who endure when they are tested. When they pass the test, they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him” (James 1:12 GW).
Image Attribution: “One Hit Wonders Night” by Princeton Public Library, NJ is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0. Image cropped.
(1) Barclay, William. William Barclay’s Daily Study Bible, “The Danger Of Drift (Heb 10:32-39)”
(2) Coffman, James Burton. “Commentary on Hebrews 10”. “Coffman’s Commentaries on the Bible”. https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/bcc/hebrews-10.html. Abilene Christian University Press, Abilene, Texas, USA. 1983-1999.