Luke 21:19

Stand firm and you will win your life. (NIV)

I think in verse like this its important to establish context to make it clearer. (then again you should always establish context). Jesus in the previous verses is talking about the end times and what needs to take place first before He comes back. He talks about how kingdom will go against kingdom, how there will be a lot of natural disasters that will plague the earth, and people will come in Jesus name saying that they are the Christ but are not. Jesus tells them not to be afraid because these things must happen before Jesus comes back. But he goes on to talk about how people are going to hate them and persecute them, and Jesus tells them to endure or stand firm as the NIV translation says. I think Jesus is trying to warn people and to encourage people not to lose their faith and encourage them to keep going because they will gain their life’s if they endure this. I think this important especially in the day we live in where most of the things that Jesus is saying in this passage is coming to past, country are waging war against country, people are calling themselves Jesus, people are going crazy saying the end is near and starting weird cults, there has been several natural disasters that has happened in the past year so, everything that Jesus said in this passage is coming true. And Christianity is being persecuted around the world, people can lose their lives in some places, sometimes people can be thrown in prison or severely beaten if the say the believe in Jesus. People will lie and ruin your reputation, or verbally beat them or, make accusations against them to start rumors against them. All of which are terrible but, Jesus just said it will happen and tells us to endure. To stand and withstand everything and to keep the focus and to not waiver. Why? Cause God knows what is going on and He is till in control so, no matter how bad it seems we can have faith in God and we can hold to the promise the God gives us saying that He will never leave us nor forsake us and when those times happen I can run to Jesus and hold on to him with everything I have and when I don’t have anything left I know he will hold me up and carry me through. So, I think standing firm in this case is remembering the promises that Jesus gave us and to hold firm to that and to keep my eyes on that.

Application

 will search the bible and look for the promises that Jesus Gives us and write them down and meditate on each one.