Endure to the End
Not because I never fell
Listen
Start by listening to Endure to the End from Hold the Line. The words are on the song’s page.
The message
The last song on the album goes all the way back to the beginning. John calls Jesus Christ "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." Before this earth was ever formed, the Savior had already been chosen, and the outcome was already sure. The war was won before it started. The enemy knows he's beaten. Revelation says he has great wrath, "because he knoweth that he hath but a short time." And he still comes on to fight. So the question isn't who wins the war. It's whose side I'm on tonight.
The title comes from Nephi. After he saw the Savior baptized, he taught that getting on the path is not the end of the road. "Ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life." Read that slowly. Enduring to the end isn't just hanging on and gritting your teeth until it's over. It's pressing forward, in Christ, full of hope, full of love, and feasting on His word. It's a way of walking, not a way of waiting.
The song uses a phrase from the Doctrine and Covenants: valiant in the testimony of Jesus. That's where valiance belongs. Not in how many battles you won, but in how faithfully you held to your witness of Him.
Then the song does something honest. In the title song it was other men who dropped their shields and ran. Here, at the end of the album, the same narrator admits he ran too. He's broken ranks. He took wounds he brought on himself, and he owned every one. That's Peter's story. On the night before His death, the Savior told Peter, "I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren." That same night Peter denied Him three times. And after the Resurrection, by the Sea of Galilee, the Lord asked Peter three times, "lovest thou me?" and three times gave him work to do: feed my sheep. He didn't cast Peter out. He handed back his sword and sent him back to the line. That's what the mercy is for.
Paul, near the end of his life, wrote, "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith." The Lord doesn't ask us if we won every battle. He asks if we finished the race. And Moroni's last invitation tells us how: "come unto Christ, and be perfected in him... and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you." We don't endure on our own strength. We endure on His.
That's the last word of this album, and it's the last word of this devotional: "Not because I never fell / But because He never did." Everything on this record has been pointing to Him. Jesus Christ chose the Father's will before the world was. He won in the garden. He walked out of the tomb. He's standing beside you on the line tonight, and He'll be standing when it ends. So get back up. Press forward. Hold the line with Him, and endure to the end.
Ponder
Where have you fallen and been afraid to get back in line, and what would change if you believed the Savior is already holding out your sword?
Try this tonight
Write your testimony of Jesus Christ in two or three sentences, and share it with one person, out loud or in a message.