Keep the Faith
2 Timothy 4:7
The daylight is waning by which man can work and there will be no time to turn back for the day of Yahveh (the LORD) is approaching. Only the enemy of our souls tries to influence us to think that we can stay preoccupied with our daily lives and business as usual and wait until the last moments to have a faith to support us with perseverance and an overcoming spirit that can endure the great trials and judgments that are coming. This is foolishness and impossible without continually exercising and building up faith as the greatest muscle in our whole being because it will be the one thing Yahshua (Jesus) will be looking for when He returns. “When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?" (Luke 18:8). Faith is the backbone of Yahshua’s (Jesus’s) true body. From the Head down—the core, spine, ligaments are all connected to the muscles, sinews, and strength that comes from faith. We need to turn our attention to better and more rigorous training, or else we will not have the strength and endurance to be more than conquerors —we will be less than conquerors. Our flesh will conquer us, with its fears and the lack of stored up provisions to be as the five wise virgins having enough oil, strength, and faith to be pleasing when our Bridegroom comes.
Apostle Paul says, “Be imitators of me, just as I also am [an imitator] of Messiah” (1 Corinthians 11:1). The great apostle was saying, “Use me as your example. Look at the price I have had to pay, look at the perseverance and endurance I have had to exert in faith. Look at the trials, testing, sufferings, rejections, and the near-death experiences I have had—and “I have fought the good fight … I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7) and not shrunk back.”
Yahshua (Jesus) is the One who is going to teach us how to build up spiritual muscles of faith in order to bear burdens, trials, and sufferings. He said, "We must go through many hardships [tribulations] to enter the kingdom of God" (Acts 14:22). These trials are tools, in Yahveh’s (the LORD’s) loving hands, for the perfecting and strengthening of our faith. He says that “without faith it is impossible to please Him” (Hebrews 11:6). It has been prophetically proclaimed in the Old and New Testaments—"Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens" (Hebrews 12:26). We should take heed and get in a fitness program as never before to build up our faith. “If [we] do not stand firm in [our] faith, [we] will not stand at all” (Isaiah 7:9). We are to endure dying to our flesh and the trials and tribulations that are part of our walk in order that we will stand firm on the Rock as everything else is shaking. Then we will be beacon lights of faith, spiritual fortitude, and strength to those who will be overwhelmed losing their balance, being in utter dismay, confusion, and terror.
We are to wholeheartedly pursue and continually seek Yahveh’s (the LORD’s) will and good pleasure and the exercises of building up our faith through obedience to His word. We are to take our hope out of this world by transferring our investments and desires into the coming glorious kingdom. This is not only wisdom but it is a requirement lest in the great shaking we become as others who are swallowed up in fear and compromise through friendship with this world—getting spiritually flabby and fat with selfish ambition. In that case the worst scenario can be expected, Yahshua (Jesus) will grievously say to us, “’I don't know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!' (Luke 13:27) you do not do the will of My Father in heaven.”
By the mercies of Yahveh I beseech you beloved to get spiritually fit so that you will be able to complete the race and the good fight of faith which is a requirement to endure victoriously to the end and become more than conquerors through Yahshua (Jesus) Messiah in us—the hope of glory.
“Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me to render to every man according to what he has done” (Revelation 22:12) whether good by His Spirit or evil by the flesh.
