We have the charge to keep the commandment to endure to the
end. From dictionary.com, endure means, “to
bear without resistance or with patience”.
When I was a child, enduring to the end meant to me trying to pay
attention to the talks in sacrament meeting and not on what I wanted to do when
I got home. Until I studied more about
it, I thought it meant to pay my tithes and go to church every week until the
day I die. I now know that it means to
remain faithful to the laws and ordinances of the gospel of Jesus Christ
throughout my life.
President Dieter F Uchtdorf has stated that, “This belief distinguishes
Latter-day Saints from
many other Christian
denominations that teach
that salvation is
given to all
who simply believe
and confess that
Jesus is the
Christ.”
D&C 14:7 And, if you keep my commandments and
endure to the end you shall have eternal life, which gift is the greatest of
all the gifts of God.
President Uchtdorf further declared, “Ours is an active religion, helping God's
children along the straight and narrow path to develop their full potential
during this life and return to Him one day. Viewed from this perspective,
enduring to the end is exalting and glorious, not grim and gloomy. This is a
joyful religion, one of hope, strength, and deliverance. Adam fell that men
might be; and men are, that they might have joy.”
So enduring to the end is more than my just hanging in there
through life’s difficulties. It’s doing
my best to keep the commandments of the Lord, including but not limited to
keeping my oaths and covenants, honoring my priesthood, being a good husband
and father, paying my tithes, service and charity towards others, faithful church
attendance, accepting and magnifying my callings in the church, ministering to
others through home teaching and sharing the gospel to bring others unto Christ.
“We tend
to think only in terms of our endurance, but it is God’s patient long-suffering which provides us with our chances
to improve, affording us urgently needed developmental space or time. Paul
observed, “Now no chastening for the
present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth
the peaceable fruit of righteousness.” Such “peaceable fruit” comes only
in the appointed season thereof, after the blossoms and the buds. Otherwise, if certain mortal experiences were cut short,
it would be like pulling up a flower to see how the roots are doing. Put
another way, too many anxious openings of the oven door, and the cake falls
instead of rising. Moreover, enforced change usually does not last,
while productive enduring can ingrain
permanent improvement.
Patient
endurance is to be distinguished from merely being “acted upon.” Endurance is
more than pacing up and down within the cell of our circumstance; it is not only acceptance of the things
allotted to us, but to “act for ourselves” by magnifying what is allotted to
us.”
--Elder Neal A Maxwell, “Endure It Well”
