BILL ZECHMANN The Perseverance of LOVE
The Perseverance of Love by Bill Zechmann www.principlesforliving.org
The Perseverance of Love Do you have the tendency to begin things, but rarely finish them? Do you wish you were better at finishing the projects you start? Why is it easier to start something, rather than to finish what we already started? Would you like to be known for your perseverance? In I Corinthians 13:6-7 it says, Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the New International Version of the Bible. Principles for Living Copyright 2016 Principles for Living P.O. Box 1097 Norfolk, NE 68702 (888) 881-3411 www.principlesforliving.org info@principlesforliving.org Published by Principles for Living Printed in the United States of America. All rights reserved under International Copyright Law. Contents and / or cover may not be reproduced in whole or in part in any form without the express written consent of the Publisher. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres. What does it mean to persevere? To persevere is to stay the course that one has chosen even if things get tough. 1
To persevere is to stay the course that one has chosen even if things get tough. We stay the course even when we see no way in which we can proceed. The Scripture says love always perseveres. That means that love never gives up. No matter what happens, love will stay for the battle. Love knows how to confront and doesn t shy away from doing what s hard. That s why love always perseveres it isn t interested in itself. That doesn t mean that perseverance is always good. We can persevere in the wrong things or for the wrong reason. The religious leaders of Jesus time persevered in trying to kill Him, because He threatened their way of life. We can persist in doing good or in doing bad. When we are unwilling to give up our sin, we are persisting in our sin. In Galatians 6:9 it says, And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. Don t we all want to be strong? Don t we all want to be overcomers? If we want to be strong, we will need to learn how to persevere. That means we will have to do things we don t want to do. If our desire is to become strong, that requires us to want to do the things we don t naturally want to do. Just as with diet and exercise, we need to remake our desires. If our desire is to do the hard things, then we will persevere in them even when things get tough. We will welcome hard things because we will know they are in our best interests. Doing the hard thing will make us strong. 2 3
If we naturally desired to do what was hard, that would make doing the hard thing easy! That s why we need to learn to persevere. In James 1:12 it says, Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. When we have died to ourselves, it should no longer matter if something is hard or easy. Look at what Paul said in Galatians 2:20. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. If we are dead to ourselves, and Christ is the one who now lives in us, then we have His strength and His desires! And Christ had the ability to persevere. In Colossians 1:11-12 it says, May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. (ESV) This verse uses the words perseverance (endurance and patience) and joy together. That tells me that we are to be joyful in our trials. We will have to desire trials, if that is what God wants for us. If those trials are from God, we should welcome them with joy. 4 5
If the testing of our faith produces steadfastness, we must welcome these tests and hard things into our lives, as they will strengthen our faith and our resolve. There is a reward for remaining steadfast. You may ask, But how can I become a person who has the ability to stand with all steadfastness? Take a look at James 1:3: For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. If the testing of our faith produces steadfastness, we must welcome these tests and hard things into our lives, as they will strengthen our faith and our resolve. No Pain, No Gain When I was growing up, life was tough. I didn t have a happy childhood. I lived in a household where my dad mostly told me what I did wrong, and not what I did right. I tried so hard to please him. I became a people pleaser because of my need for acceptance. Being a people pleaser only sets us up for disappointment, because we will never be able to please anyone perfectly. As people pleasers, our self-worth is tied to our ability to make others happy. I wish back then I had known what I know now about the need to be a God pleaser instead of a people pleaser. I wouldn t have felt so badly when it seemed like I couldn t make everyone happy. For that matter, I couldn t seem to make anyone happy. I simply had to learn to persevere, no matter whatever my situation was. 6 7
I love what Paul says in Philippians 4:12-13: I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength. Paul found a way to rejoice in all situations. When I wasn t a Christian, I didn t know anything about being content despite my circumstances. Instead, I was trying to get away from any situation that could possibly cause conflict. Those tough times were molding me for later in life, when I would need to persevere instead of quitting. I was learning to persevere and I didn t even know it. Trials can create great endurance and the ability to persevere, if we let them. When I was young I was ridiculed repeatedly by my brothers. They would say things like, Hey, see that post over there? You re as dumb as a post you re as dumb as that post. They were heartless and always tried to make me look bad or feel bad. They thought it was fun to make me feel miserable. When they had friends around they chided me all the more. When I was sleeping, my one brother s friends would come over to spend the night. They would wake me up and throw me out of bed and even sometimes down the stairs. In school they bullied me and were cruel to me. Once, when I was in the gym, one of them took a basketball and threw it at me while I wasn t looking. He clocked me in the head, hard, and gave me long-term 8 9
I m not suggesting that you let yourself suffer for suffering s sake. I m suggesting that there is something good being built up in you as your endure life s difficult things. headaches. You can only imagine the kind of anger I had inside of me! I was younger and smaller in stature so I couldn t defend myself. I just had to take it. We all have difficult situations that we have to deal with in life. I m not suggesting that you let yourself suffer for suffering s sake I m suggesting that there is something good being built up in you as you endure life s difficult things. We all try to avoid facing our demons, when in reality we should welcome the chance to face them, because that is where we become strong, and perseverance is built in us. When we no longer try to avoid the things that may cause us pain, we can learn to handle circumstances which we only dreamed of handling in the past. That s the Power of Love In this lesson on the perseverance of love, I want you to remember that perseverance is something that love always does, as it says in I Corinthians 13:7. To know we should persevere is one thing; to actually be able to persevere is another thing altogether. Learning these simple facts will help keep you moving in the right direction, which is to become more like Jesus every day. As we learn to persevere, I really want you to remember that our learning to persevere needs to be tied back to God in 10 11
every way possible. As we grow, we must remember it is He who is causing us to grow. We must make sure we don t start crediting ourselves for the strength that is developing in our hearts. In Jeremiah 17:5 it reads, Thus says the Lord: Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord. (ESV) It s easy to give ourselves credit when we work hard and actually see progress in We need to make sure we let others see that it is the work of God which has made us strong. ourselves. But if we want to be a light to the world around us, we need to make sure we let others see that it is the work of God which has made us strong. There is nothing like pain to get us to give up. But having the ability to persevere and make tough decisions when under duress is the quality we seek in the people we choose as our leaders. Think about the saying, Necessity is the mother of invention. If necessity truly is the mother of invention, that means when things get bad, we have to figure something out. It s a necessity. That s when our minds go into overdrive and we come up with ideas we would have never thought of, if we weren t in a state of high-alert. That s what perseverance is like. We surge forward, even when it feels like a waste of time. When we persevere, it means we have something to hope in when there isn t any hope left. 12 13
In Romans 5:1-4 it says, Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. When we think of love always persevering, we see true love in action. How many times have we basked in our own suffering? We usually complain and moan about our suffering. To give glory to God even in our suffering, we must keep our suffering to ourselves and rejoice that we are counted worthy to suffer for Christ. What does suffering produce in us? Perseverance! And remember: Love always perseveres, which means we must be willing to suffer for those we love. And what does our perseverance produce? It produces character. Our character is seen by others as an example of what the Gospel has done in our lives. Build your Tolerance for Suffering In order to persevere, we need to build up a tolerance for persevering. This is a principle fact. Just like someone who drinks alcohol builds up a tolerance for alcohol, so can a person build up a tolerance for more suffering. What does that tolerance do 14 15
for a person? It s just like the alcohol. It allows a person to have more of it without being as affected by it. That means we can endure more suffering without it affecting us negatively. In Romans 12:12 it says, Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Paul rejoiced in his suffering. He had truly mastered the art of persevering. In II Thessalonians 1:4-5 it says, Therefore, among God s churches we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring. All this is evidence that God s judgment is right, and as a result you will be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering. Love doesn t complain about pain, but instead rejoices for the opportunity to suffer for a worthy cause. I want to encourage you to remain steadfast in persevering, and doing it in love. If we are moaning and groaning about what we are persevering through, we aren t doing it out of love. Love doesn t complain about pain, but instead rejoices for the opportunity to suffer for a worthy cause. Let me tell you a story about my wife and I that showed great perseverance on both of our parts, but in two totally different ways: Shortly after Jane and I got married, I told her that someday I was going to make a certain amount of money, annually. She was hopeful that I could do more than just talk about doing it but actually do it. 16 17
I don t know why I had a certain number in my mind, but I did. For over ten years Jane moved with me from place to place, all over the country, as I struggled to find a way to be successful financially. She persevered through those hard times when we had nothing, and the little that we did have, I squandered in things that didn t work out. While she patiently persevered with me, I had to persevere with myself as well. It would have been easy to quit trying, but that goal and my promise to her pushed me onward. Jane would sometimes lovingly ask me why I couldn t be like everyone else. Why couldn t I be content with a normal, more secure job, in a manufacturing company or something like that? I told her I didn t want to live to die. That was a phrase that I came up with when I was working at a manufacturing plant. That kind of thing wasn t for me. Not only would I be incapable of making the kind of money I had set as a goal, if I stayed working where I was, but I was also doing a job I just didn t like. She lovingly would tell me it paid good enough, it had good benefits, it was a clean place to work, and the people were enjoyable, so why not just stay? But I felt like I was just living to die. Since I didn t like what I was doing, all I had to look forward to was retirement, so I could stop doing what I didn t like to do. But retirement was thirty years away! If I stayed there until retirement, then what would come after retirement? You die. Maybe not right away, but eventually you die. I didn t want to live to die. I wanted to love life and feel that what I was doing had some significance to it, so I kept my eyes open and my ears to the ground. I continued to 18 19
look for something which would allow me to get to my financial goal. We moved eight times in just ten years. I disappointed myself many times, but I persevered. If one thing didn t work out, then I would move on to try something else. Jane persevered by my side. She believed in me, even when I lost more money on some of my ventures than she made all year working. What a patient and persevering woman she was and still is. In I Corinthians 13:4-5 it says, Love is patient, and love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrongs. I want to look at these scriptures in light of my wife always persevering in love. She was patient and kind to me through my stumbling ventures. She was never so proud of herself that she chided me because my failures made her look bad. She didn t dishonor me or try to make me look bad to others, as a way of making sure they knew my failures were not hers. She persevered for me because she wasn t seeking just what she wanted for herself. And the biggest thing of all was that she didn t keep a record of my failures so she could use them against me in some future conflict. So what did her perseverance gain her? It kept me from getting down. I was feeling bad enough. If she had been critical and condescending to me, I may have lost the will to keep forging ahead. I would possibly have settled for less than what would have fulfilled me. Her perseverance became a blessing to me, because she was a support system for me, instead of a thorn in my flesh. 20 21
After eleven years of marriage I finally reached the annual goal that I had set. Do you want to be successful at whatever you put your hand to? If I could tell you what it took to be successful, and could guarantee it, would you follow my instructions? If you have answered yes, then my advice to you would be to do what God tells you to do. Learn His ways. Those ways may be hard to follow, but that s where the strength comes from. It comes from being willing to do what is hard instead of always trying to seek the easiest way out. The Bible says love always perseveres. That means love is always patient. Are we always patient? If we aren t, then we need to ask ourselves why not. Maybe we are chasing something that will make us proud, and the possibility of missing out on it makes us anxious. We are afraid we Do you want to be successful at whatever you put your hand to? My advice to you would be to do what God tells you to do. Learn His ways. might not look good if certain things don t work out, so we use the arm of the flesh to try to manipulate the circumstances around us, in order to get things to turn out the way we want them. The focus ends up being on ourselves. If love always perseveres, we need to get our eyes off of ourselves otherwise it s not love at all. We have to be careful that we don t spend our time imagining the enjoyment of the finer things in life. When we do, we set ourselves up to fail. The set-up comes from not having our minds prepared for suffering that may come our way. Here is 22 23
a principle fact: If we are longing for good things, and bad things show up, we won t be prepared. We won t have the strength to persevere when the time comes that we need to do so. We are in a battle zone; we need to be ready at all times for the enemy to attack us. We are in a battle zone; we need to be ready at all times for the enemy to attack us. It s no time to be dreaming about good times to come. If we are longing for good things, and bad things show up, we won t be prepared mentally to persevere. There is much to be said for preparation. Too often we don t think of things like preparing to persevere. God is prepared for anything and everything. Look at the systems that He has put in place in the universe, from the solar system to our muscular system or our skeletal system and even the seasons of the year. When things are systematic, there isn t any need to make decisions on the go. Perseverance becomes the norm. In closing I want you to think about James 1:4. It says, Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, and not lacking anything. Don t shy away from the pain that makes you strong. Without it you will remain weak. May God be glorified today, tomorrow and forever. 24 25
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Bill Zechmann President & Founder Principles for Living A COMMITMENT TO BIBICAL TEACHING Bill Zechmann was born in the rural Foster, Nebraska. At the age of eighteen he committed his life to Christ and felt God s call to teach practical Biblical principles. Principles for Living was founded in 2010. His calling was inspired by James 3:1-2: Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment. (NASU) Bill spent decades studying the doctrines of different Christian denominations to help him understand and teach the Bible more effectively. He holds B.A degrees in Biblical Studies and Human Resources Management. Bill professes that his greatest joy in life comes from helping others find the love of Christ in their lives. The goal of his teachings is to help others find freedom from the clutches of sin. A MISSIONARY AT HOME AND ABROAD In 2010, while serving as a missionary in the Philippines, Kenya, and Liberia, Bill ministered to crowds of 5,000 people and has seen hundreds come forward to receive Christ. At home in the United States, Bill conducts personal growth seminars and evangelistic crusades. His teachings are focused on helping the lost find Christ and seeking a positive change in their lives. STRENGTHENED BY ADVERSITY Bill s teachings have been molded through many of the experiences he has had throughout his own life. Overcoming adversity became a source of strength. Despite health problems and the loss of their secondborn child, Bill and his wife Jane persevered together and grew as Christians. Regardless of the hardships they have had to face, Bill and Jane maintain that their lives continue to be strengthened by Christ s love. ZECHMANN FAMILY Bill and Jane have been happily married for more than 30 years. They currently reside in Norfolk, Nebraska.
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Where do you go when times get tough? Even the Christian life will have seasons of heartbreak and pain. But if we can persevere in difficult circumstances, our faith will grow ever stronger. Inside, you ll learn more about: The purpose of suffering in our lives, and how it builds character and endurance. Why we must learn to persevere in love, and not just for our own gain. How our perseverance will show others the power of the Gospel. with Bill Zechmann www.principlesforliving.org