"The Will To Succeed"

"For Consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds." (Hebrews 12:3) Just when you think that you have something figured out, the Lord likes to show us something from His heart. Case in point, would be "lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds", because sometimes mind can mean soul, which in this case, that is exactly what it means in this passage of Scripture. As a matter of fact, it specifically means our entire affection, which can be translated to mean more than with all of my soul, but could speak something like, whole heartily. Do you have the will to succeed? Have you ever? As I was thinking about these questions this morning, a particular church of the seven churches in the Book of Revelation came to mind, the Church of Ephesus; always labouring to do what was right, but never really able to finish well; why? because they had left their first love! And yet in the list of those things that Jesus had towards them, He said, "and hast borne, and hast patience, and for My name's sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted" (Rev. 2:3), giving reference to this word faint again, but with a different meaning altogether. Oh, I can find a way to make these words mean the same, but there is a real difference between what is physical and what is spiritual; because the reference of this word faint in Revelation has to do with the physical, as in to be tired from work, like to be plugging along and not growing weary in well doing; but the faint from Hebrews is one of being despondent, which is more like disheartened, or having lost the will to carry on in the race. Been there and done that! I can recall one ride that I was on, I think it was back in 1987; I was strong; really strong; and I had sprinted far out in front of everyone else, with an awesome burst of energy and felt as though I could keep that pace forever. Well, forever lasted about two hours, and by the time I hit the mountain, I was done; as a matter of fact, that was the first race that I never finished; although I continued on from the point of hitting 'the wall', I only did so for about another two hours; finally throwing in the towel at the 76 mile mark of a 100 mile ride. Given, I did have an excuse, because I had went over a rail-road track that was buried below a puddle of water, bending my back rim rather severely; however, I could have fixed that rim in about five to ten minutes, if I really had the will to succeed. But here we see the difference between will to go on and the ability to continue due to something else; and we can find a way to make them mean the same thing, if we so desire; but will that really change them? You know what a loser's limp is, and what it means? Passion plays a very big role in our will to succeed; Do you think love has anything to do with that???