Obtaining Your Crown of Glory

 "They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb... and they loved not their lives unto the death" (Rev. 12:11).

When James and John came to Christ with their mother, asking Him to give them the best place in the kingdom, He did not refuse their request, but told them it would be given to them if they could do His work, drink His cup, and be baptized with His baptism.

Do we want the competition? The greatest things are always hedged about by the hardest things, and we, too, shall find mountains and forests and chariots of iron. Hardship is the price of coronation. Triumphal arches are not woven out of rose blossoms and silken cords, but of hard blows and bloody scars. The very hardships that you are enduring in your life today are given by the Master for the explicit purpose of enabling you to win your crown.

Do not wait for some ideal situation, some romantic difficulty, some far-away emergency; but rise to meet the actual conditions which the Providence of God has placed around you today. Your crown of glory lies embedded in the very heart of these things--those hardships and trials that are pressing you this very hour, week and month of your life. The hardest things are not those that the world knows of. Down in your secret soul unseen and unknown by any but Jesus, there is a little trial that you would not dare to mention that is harder for you to bear than martyrdom. ~ Unknown

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There, beloved, lies your crown. God help you to overcome, and sometime wear it.  --Selected

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"It matters not how the battle goes,
The day how long;
Faint not! Fight on!
Tomorrow comes the song."

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I can testify that the attainment of the "crown" comes at a price. Too often believers exert a lot of effort attempting to circumvent the trials and struggles that befall them. They seem to believe that the victory is in avoiding difficulties, when in truth the victory is in faithfully enduring them.

There is not one trial that comes into your life in which God has not designed a plan for that trial to carry you closer to your ultimate destiny and glory as a believer. There is power in your pain. There is strength in your struggle. There is heavenly glory in your heartache.  As the Apostle Paul said, "I consider that the sufferings of this current time are not worthy to be compared to the glory that will be revealed in us (Rom. 8:18).

It was Paul that said, "We are head pressed on every side; yet not crushed, we are perplexed, but not in despair, persecuted, but not forsaken, struck down, but not destroyed, always carrying around the body of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body (2 Cor. 4:8-10).

Your pain has transforming power. Your pain has healing power. Your pain has directive power. God is using your pain to prepare you for your promotion. ~ Dr. Rick Wallace