Removing The Quit Option (Part 3)

“Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.” 1 Corinthians 9:25 

In the book The Lone Survivor, a Navy SEAL named Marcus Luttrell talks about the challenges soldiers face while training to be a SEAL. After months of torturous trials, they finish with “Hell Week," the most challenging week of all. But he recalls the day when finally he was told to go to a staging area and wait there. And when he got there, instead of an instructor screaming at him, there were soldiers in full blues with their medal jackets on, waiting there to congratulate them and let them know, “You are now a Navy SEAL.” And that’s what it’s all about. God wants you to finish your course. The enemy will tell you to give up, that you are alone, and it is impossible to go on. But others have been where you are, and they made it.

When Luttrell got into a real battle, he was ready. What he went through in training prepared him. Some years later, he found himself in Afghanistan, grossly outnumbered by enemy soldiers. He could have given up as he watched all of the other men get killed one by one. But something in him wouldn’t let him quit. Even though he got shot, he kept running. He jumped off a mountain and broke his leg, but he wouldn’t stop. Everything in him was screaming for him to give up, but he kept fighting, and somehow, he withstood 150 Taliban until help came. He even tried to keep some of his comrades alive in the process. It was an amazing feat. Looking back, Luttrell said, “I really won the victory back on that beach when I decided that I would never quit, that I would never ring that bell. I watched my buddies as they fought, and there was not one of them who gave up in despair. There was not one who said, ‘It’s hopeless, let’s quit.’ All of them stood until the last minute, and fought because they had crossed that bridge.”

We need to have that kind of determination. If you are going to serve the Lord in this day and time, when the fight is on, you have to have it branded in your mind, “I have removed the quit option.” 1 Peter 4 says, “Beloved, think it not strange that some fiery trial would try you, but rejoice that you are partakers of the suffering, which brings exceeding joy.” Hebrews put it like this, “We’re looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross.” 

Jesus endured everything that they threw at Him. He endured the whip when they beat His back until it looked like ribbons falling from His flesh. He endured the pounding on His face, the spit, the accusations, and the humiliation. He endured the nails as they stretched Him across the timbers and nailed His hands and His feet to them. He never would invoke the quit option. All He had to do was say the word, and at any moment 10,000 angels would have come and rescued Him from the cross. But something in Him said, “I’ve got to finish this thing. I made up my mind back in the Garden of Gethsemane, not my will but thine be done.” And when they put the crown of thorns on His head, stabbed Him in His side, nailed Him to the cross, and when He hung suspended between Earth and Heaven, He cried, “It is finished.” 

And Hebrews goes on to say this, “Consider Him, lest you become weary and faint in your minds.”  When you are going through your “Hell Week,” consider Jesus. Remember how He endured and wouldn’t quit. He could have stopped it all, but He would not do it because of His great love for you and me.

Share