Persevere

Don't you give up.

“They strengthened the spirits of the disciples
and exhorted them to persevere in the faith, saying,
"It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships
to enter the Kingdom of God." Acts 14:22

What do you think that phrase means? Leave a comment to share your thoughts.

Just before this verse Paul was proclaiming the Kingdom when some Jews came down to stone him just as he had allowed Stephen to be stoned. Assuming he was dead, they dragged his body out of the city and left him there. Take a moment to picture that scene in your imagination.

Some disciples went out of the city to find Paul’s body. As they surrounded him, he picked himself up off the ground, and stumbled his way back into the city. What courage! Earlier in Paul’s life, before the Damascus Road, he participated and witnessed the stoning of Stephen. Preaching to the Jews and urging them to unharden their hearts, to believe in Christ, cost him his life. At Lystra, Paul finds himself in the same situation Stephen was in just a fe…