Faithful Tenacity is one of the most valuable traits in the Kingdom. Without it we are lost in a world of misinformation and humanistic self-destructing goals. Faithful tenacity speaks to the believer’s life quest for Christ. It’s the recognizable behavior trait of one who has found the right path and doggedly pursues it to the end.
We are all searching for significance. It doesn’t matter if we call it our purpose or destiny. We want to fit in somehow in this crazy world because our Creator put in all of us the desire to know God. In the 21st century we are surrounded by centuries of human traditions and opinions of men. Our heads are swelled by information while our bodies show all the signs of malnourishment. The Christ Life is a journey, and we must have faithful tenacity to find and to remain in that which will quench and truly satisfy the thirst and hunger in our soul.
It’s sad, but in the 21st century we are all leaving something. At first, it’s as if we are blind. We know there is a God but there is so much noise its hard to hear the directions. God must speak to the Spirit of God the Creator put in us. When the Creator touches His creation there is no more doubt in us. Like the baby chick who recognizes his mother and the blind puppy who knows by instinct how to find his mommas milk so are we in this world. We need faithful tenacity to latch on and never let go of that which produces life in us.
Christ is that Life. Becoming like Christ is our destiny. Incarnating Christ in this world is our purpose and our significance will only be found in Him. Nothing else will ever truly satisfy our hunger. Scripture says;
13 till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; 14 that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, 15 but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head — Christ — 16 from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.
Eph 4:13-16
The Creator put in all of us the need to belong in a family or community before we accept a belief or a doctrine. We all want to be loved and accepted. People are not interested today in what the Church says because this generation knows when its being played. They know what’s behind those free dinners and outreaches and it is not unconditional no-agenda love. People want to follow but only Christ love will attract them. We must model Christ and teach by example His love for humanity. Belonging always comes first. Nothing else will move a heart with a faithful tenacity for the real thing.
I recently trapped a possum and when I got nearer, I saw that all the babies were latched on to the mother in such a way that they moved as one. So is the process for the Christ follower with faithful tenacity. The Holy Spirit is the tit we must suck on and the umbilical cord we never disconnect from. This is a life journey and something you never outgrow. For us there is the internal satisfaction but for those that are watching us there are the external signs of growth. There are visible external changes in behavior and character in those that have been internally ingesting Christ. All the rest is religious smoke, lights, sounds and mirrors which cannot produce true transformation.
I said above that people want to belong before they will accept your doctrines and beliefs. We must be careful to what we hook our life to because in the end we may ingest that which doesn’t produce Christ life. There are many ways to belong to error such as gangs, religious systems, and political parties who will have you overlooking sin as you take on their perspective. We may even find ourselves building our own Tower of Babel with some human celebrity god-figure at the top. What all these groups can’t do is to properly nourish us so there is a growth that looks like Christ. God help us place our trust and faithful tenacity in His hands.
I want to discuss two specific errors that I have observed on this life journey. First there is the “I will drink anything with Jesus on the label” error. These people always put knowledge ahead of character. They tend to be elitist and prideful of what “they know” but their personal lives are a disaster. They have exchanged the Person of Christ for a method or a doctrine. I am sad to say that I personally know a handful of them who have ended up in mental institutions. Some of them are out walking around today causing division and are on anxiety drugs. They are truly poor examples of Christ life.
The other will “drink of everything that the world calls spiritual.” They believe when it comes to God all roads lead to Rome. The Lord Jesus is not given preference but is just added to their plethora of religious knowledge. They are sick and don’t know it because they eat anything and everything. Driven by pride as their foundation they consider themselves to be deep thinkers because of their acceptance of all truth. The Christ life is not a religion to perform but a lifestyle that will transform. Truth is a Person and His name is the Lord Jesus Christ.
Both above examples will derail you and lead you on a path of self-destruction.
How to Avoid Error with your Faithful Tenacity
There is nothing individual in the Christian faith. We who are followers of Christ are all “Adelphos”. In the Greek it means we are womb-mates because we drink daily from the same life producing nourishment which is Christ. Faithful tenacity has helped us all to latch on to each other to produce a family or a community of Christ followers on this journey of life. The Christian life cannot be lived outside of a Body. The real Ekklesia(called-out-ones) is the womb which protects us from craziness of the world around us. We all need this community to model the way before us and to pull us back when we get off on a tangent.
Where are you on this journey? Christ alone produces healthy growth in His Body. The proof is the daily transformation that molds us in the nature and character of Christ. My prayer is that you will place your faithful tenacity in Christ and Christ alone in His Body.
Much love,
Jose L. Bosque
