ENDEAVOR TO PERSEVERE
Digging for the Gems Only You Can Find
Watch a first-year resident and a surgeon of thirty years hold the same scalpel. Watch a white belt and a black belt throw the same punch. Watch a rookie and a champion in the same boxing ring, the same octagon, the same race car at the same track. The difference is never luck. The difference is repetition , consistency and persevererence.
The difference is hours nobody saw, put in on days nobody clapped. Training and studying and persistence do not sometimes pay off. They do not usually pay off. They always pay off. That is not Motivational poster talk — that is a law as fixed as gravity.
THE SAME LAW GOVERNS
THE WORD OF GOD
Here is where I need you to lean in, because this is the whole message: what is true on the field, in the cockpit, in the operating room, and in the ring is just as true on your knees with an open Bible. The Scriptures are not a book you hear once a week for an hour and walk away transformed. The Bible is a treasure — a mine, not a puddle. Wisdom is in it. Peace is in it. Knowledge and understanding for your marriage, your finances, your fear, your anger,
your past — it is all in there. But a treasure buried in a mine does nobody any good if nobody ever picks up a shovel.
“Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15, KJV)
That word “study” is not a suggestion. It is a command, and it is a command that comes with a promise attached: the workman who studies has no reason to be ashamed. The one who never opens the book, on the other hand, is left standing on secondhand information for the rest of his life.
Man to Man Men's Conferences
MyEncounterMyFreedom.com
THE PROBLEM: WAITING ON SOMEONE ELSE'S DIG
Here is the honest truth, man to man. Too few men ever actually train in the Word. Too few men study it. Most men wait for Sunday, wait for the preacher to climb into his study, do the digging, find the gem, polish it up, and hand it to them in a twenty-five-minute sermon. And then they walk out of the building having received someone else's revelation instead of chasing their own. That is like watching game film of somebody else's workout and expecting your own body to get stronger. It does not work that way in the gym, and it does not work that way with God.
“As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby.” (1 Peter 2:2, KJV). You were built to desire it, to crave it, to go get it yourself — not to be spoon-fed it once a week and call that a diet.
THE PROMISE: NOT MAYBE,
NOT MIGHT — WILL
Once you — not your pastor, not your small group leader, you — start digging into Scripture for yourself, your life is transformed. I am not going to soften that word. Studying Jesus Christ will not maybe, will not possibly, will not under-the-right-conditions transform your life.
It will. Every single time, for every single man who actually does it. And it will not stop with you. It will spill over onto your wife, your kids, your coworkers, and every man who has to watch you walk through this life. Nobody trains alone. When you get stronger, everyone around you benefits.
“But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” (2 Peter 3:18, KJV)
THE ASSIGNMENT
So here is my charge to you, brother. Get a Bible that reads in the language you actually speak today — a translation that does not make you feel like you need a dictionary just to get through a sentence. Open it. I will guarantee you this: what you find in those pages will enhance your life. It might feel slow at first. It might feel like the first week in the gym when everything is sore and nothing makes sense yet. Stick with it anyway. Stay in the fight.
I promise you, the words will come alive, the meaning will come alive, and you will start to feel muscle where there used to be nothing.
Endeavor to Persevere.
Every champion, every pilot, every surgeon, every man who is good at anything got there the same way — and every man who wants a life saturated with the wisdom, peace, knowledge, and understanding of God gets there the same way too. Through the door marked persistence.
OPEN THE BOOK. START TODAY. DO NOT QUIT.
That is our prayer for you today.
God loves you immensely, and we love you too.
Man to Man Men's Conferences
MyEncounterMyFreedom.com
