Hold the Course

Not long before Pastor Chuck Smith went to Heaven, I had lunch with him one day. Pastor Chuck, by the way, was a man of few words when you hung out with him privately.

As we were eating, I said, “I have a question for you. If an older Chuck could speak to a younger Chuck, what would you say to yourself? What is the message you would pass on to a younger version of you?”

He looked up at me and said, “Hold the course.” Then he went back to his meal.

I thought, “Hold the course. . . . What does that mean?”

Then I said, “Like keep doing what you’re doing?”

“Right.”

“Oh, like keep reading the Bible? So just keep praying? Just keep walking with the Lord?”

“Right. Hold the course.”

Chuck Smith did that throughout his life. And we need to do that throughout our lives, too. We need to hold our course to the very end.

Are you a person of purpose? The apostle Paul wrote to Timothy, “But you, Timothy, certainly know what I teach, and how I live, and what my purpose in life is” (2 Timothy 3:10 NLT). And what was that purpose?

He said in Philippians, “I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead!” (3:10–11 NLT).

In other words, Paul’s purpose, his reason for existence, was to know God and to become more like Christ.

What is your purpose? Everyone has one. Is your purpose knowing God? Is your purpose becoming more like Christ? That is the Christian life. We should be people of character and purpose.