“FOR YOU HAVE NEED OF HUPOMONE”

Our faith must be tested to become active, and it must be tested to produce patience (Rom. 5:3-5) which is so essential to our growth as spiritual beings betrothed to God’s Beloved Son. We have need of patience (Heb. 10:36). Patience, the Greek hupomone, is patience, perseverance, endurance, determination, courage, self-control and consistency, demonstrating faith and emulating the virtues of the Godhead. Due to the “richness” of the Greek language, it is important to understand the full meaning of the Greek word “hupomone” which is variously translated patience, endurance, and perseverance in the New Testament:

Hupomone has little meaning or usage outside the context of pressure, being in the wine press of life.  Within this context hupomone is patient, calm and self controlled, willing to wait without complaint.  Hupomone is courageous endurance, standing fast no matter what, standing fast when you’ve done all you know to do (Eph. 6:13).  Hupomone is persistent perseverance, dogged determination to walk by faith, trust God and do the things pleasing to God.  This is the perseverance of Job saying, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15 NKJV). Hupomone is that quality of God’s character in us that does not allow surrender to circumstances but maintains consistency in thought, word and deed, and, above all, does not waiver or doubt the Blessed Hope we have in Christ.

Hupomone is, ultimately, faith in the face of adversity: *Trusting God’s goodness in spite of any apparent evidence against it. *Believing that He is good, sovereign and present when life is hard, cruel and out of control. *Knowing He will never ever leave us or forsake us, that His presence is enough to sustain us during adversity of any sort. This is the consistency of Job saying: “But He knows the way that I take; when He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold.  My foot has held fast to His steps; I have kept His way and not turned aside.  I have not departed from the commandment of His lips; I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my necessary food.” (Job 23:10-12 NKJV).

We all “have need of hupomone” (Heb. 10:36) to do God’s will and receive God’s promises.  God is never absent from the adversity in the life of His children... He is ever present... and He cares. The gaze of the Christian should be on Christ who demonstrated “hupomone”, who demonstrated “God’s patience” in His life, in His suffering and in His death on the cross. So God gives us calm assurance, the strength to stand fast, the will to persist and consistency in all of these as a product of our trial.  This is the very character and nature of Christ being produced in us!

“BY YOUR PATIENCE POSSESS YOUR SOULS”