The next characteristics Jesus talks about that are imperative to knowing His Voice are faithfulness and endurance!Faithfulness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and enduring dependence on HIM. In Revelation3:7-13 Jesus is addressing a group of people who have experienced a lot of challenges, external worldly challenges, as well as the deceptive challenges from within their ranks. Everyone has these challenges and attacks on a Right & True Faith.These people being addressed by Jesus are “teaching examples” of how we may “hold on to” the Right & True Faith that only Christ can provide.Jesus breaks this down into 2 basic components that form the foundation of this kind of faith.The 1st is how we must be humbly dependent on HIS Strength enabled by HIS Gospel-Rev3:7-8,”These are the words of Him who is Holy & True...What He opens no one can shut(The Gospel of Christ that is the offered open door to Relationship with God as our Father)...I know that you have little strength(humility before God and man),yet you have kept My Word and have not denied My Name”.Keeping God’s Word-thinking and living according to God’s Word & The Gospel of Christ- is where these people were finding the STRENGTH that they humbly admitted to themselves and others that they did not have IN & OF themselves.So a primary characteristic of these people is their awe and reverence for God’s Word and The Saving Mercy of Christ...an awe&reverence that compelled them to “keep” His Word(seek to know and store up God’s Word in their minds/hearts/lives)& live dependently on God’s Word...this is where they found the supernatural strength that enabled them to “face trials of many kinds with perseverance” (James1:2-3).This perseverance/endurance is the second foundational component needed to fully develop(to mature) in them the Characteristics of lives “complete,not lacking anything”-the Maturing Eternally Withstanding Faith in Christ that knows the Presence of God well enough to ask God with the humility and dependence before God necessary to depend on His Wisdom beyond all others-Revelation3:10,”Since you have patiently kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial....”....,meaning  that Jesus promises to give us The Strength we need when we need IT,when we faithfully endure/persevere,seeking&following His Instructions.So! The two foundational components of the kind of faith that enables a Right & True Intimacy with God are 1:Reverent  dependency on The Gospel of Christ and God’s Word.2:An Enduring application of God’s Word in our lives.These are the two foundational disciplines that make disciples of Christ.One of these without the Other will lead to a faith that does not endure and eventually falls to the challenges of life.Dear Jesus...my faith pales in comparison to these people You are talking about.Yet,I know that You are far from finishing Your Teaching and Your Fitness Training in my life.I pray for Your Help and Your Patient Coaching in my life to be what I call on to sustain me through all challenges,the bad and the good...,as my Faith in Your Word and Your Spirit mature me into the disciple Your Heart desires me to be.

Because Jesus Christ is the ONLY WAY that we can have a relationship with the ONLY LIVING GOD, Jesus Himself is the ONE delivering the messages of Revelation to John. In Revelation 3:1-6 Jesus gives the fifth challenge to a vibrant relationship with Almighty God.The Lord is Omnipresent;Omniscient,& Omnipotent,so when Jesus says in Rev 1,”I know your deeds;you have a reputation for being alive, but you are dead”,HE has all the knowledge and all the authority to make such an observation of our lives.And HE does so for our own good,because in the next verse HE says,”Wake up and strengthen the things that remain,which were about to die;for I have not found your deeds completed in the sight of My God.”These people Jesus is taking about have made claims to be Christians,but yet the way they lived and the priorities they had in their lives would not have convicted them of being authentic followers of Christ.Because of this,Jesus says that the seed of Faith in Christ that initially compelled them to claim that they were Christians is about to die. James (the 1/2 brother of Christ) says it this way in James 2:26, "For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also"! It is from HIS great love & concern for these people that Jesus is making them aware of a fatal problem in their lives...a challenge that is a hardening if their hearts & a slow death of their souls.Jesus’ parable of the sower in Matthew13:1-23,& Luke8:4-22 has the same theme-HE says that when we first decide to Trust Christ that the Seed of HIS Gospel will only take root in our lives if we make sure that IT is looked after in our lives by nurturing it and protecting it from the cares of the world and challenges we face.In Revelation 3:1-6 Jesus tells us that unless our minds/hearts/lives are not LIVING OUT what HIS Word encourages & instructs about ALL THINGS,then that seed of faith that HE yearns to take root in our lives will die,never coming to life in us....the same thing that HIS 1/2 brother said!This is a reason that we must have regular checks in our minds/hearts/lives with God’s Word and His Spirit...and then we must have a follow through in our minds/hearts/lives with an application of whatever it is that His Word and His Spirit are encouraging us to do & teaching us to do.If not,a part of our heart&spirit will begin to harden...& a real relationship with The Lord begins to wane...and our relationship with Him grows cold.Dear Lord,this makes me realize that I have many areas in my life that have grown cold,because of my not taking to heart the significance of paying attention to Your instructions and encouragement so that they change the way I think,talk,behave,& treat others...especially those closest to me.I pray for You to remind me of this lesson,& to be the source of all things I need to look after the seed of Your Gospel in my life.

The fourth challenge to a real and honest relationship with the Lord is what we allow into our minds/hearts/lives that leads to an immorality of any kind.The Church of Thyatira that Jesus addresses in Revelation 2:18-29 has no problem with being “religious” and faithful “religious servers” in their community.But Jesus calls them out for what is the darker side of their lives,& probably things that they would like to keep from many others knowing about.These people have a portion of their lives that is “above the surface” where they do good things and are faithful to religious/churchy things that make them feel better about themselves and look “religious/faithful” to those around them!But Jesus knows what is going on WITHIN other parts of their minds/hearts/lives that are “beneath the surface”-things they are doing & thinking that are away from what is RIGHT&TRUE.Jesus says(Rev2:18-20),”To the angel of the church in Thyatira write: These are the words of the Son of God, whose eyes are like blazing fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze.I know your deeds, your love and faith, your service and perseverance, and that you are now doing more than you did at first.Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols.”There is much more to this spirit of Jezebel that Jesus is taking about in the Church at Thyatira...,all leading to immorality.This includes sexual immorality,but implicates much more by Jesus using Jezebel as the “example”.The Jezebel Spirit is what Jesus is referencing, which defines immorality as anything not conforming with the principles of right and wrong behavior and the goodness or badness of human character.When Jesus talks about these things,we know that The Word of God is the RIGHT&TRUE “textbook” for RIGHT Behavior and TRUE Goodness of Character!This is what Jesus is calling the Church in Thyatira to.He is pleading for them to turn away from all in their midst that is not RIGHT&TRUE,& to turn to THE TRUE GOODNESS that HE teaches in HIS Word with the help of HIS Spirit.Unless we are  heeding Jesus’ message to this group of people in Thyatira in our own lives,then we are vulnerable to the strategies of the Jezebel Spirit ourselves.I found a list of 30 traits of the Jezebel at https://truthinreality.com/2013/09/24/30-consistent-traits-of-the-jezebel-spirit/ It is eye POPPING/OPENING to read through these.Dear Lord Jesus,sitting in these verses and rolling over and over what You are saying here is making me aware of things in my life that I have allowed to have influences that have distanced me from and all honest and true relationship with You. Forgive me,& may Your Spirit use these verses to continue working in my mind/heart/life so that I purge my mind/heart/life of all these influences and be filled with Your Presence in my mind/heart/life.

The third thing that The Lord brings up challenging a true & right relationship with Him is the contamination of TRUTH with all sorts of ideas;practices;behaviors;& paradigms that do not resonate with God’s Word given to us by HIM, so that we will know what absolute TRUTH TRULY IS & it’s rewards.Revelation 2:13-15 says many people will “claim” to have faith in Christ,& hold fast to that “claim”, yet their minds/hearts/lives will reveal the TRUE state of their faith-“‘I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is.Yet you hold fast my name, and you did not deny my faith even in the days of Antipas my faithful witness, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells.But I have a few things against you: you have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice sexual immorality.So also you have some who hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans.” In other words, GOD knows that we live in a world that is at war for the souls of all people! GOD’S awesome Mercy & Grace for us fully appreciates the challenges we all have in staying true to a Right Faith in HIM.HE also knows when our Faith in HIM is threatened by a creeping away from a True & Right Faith, & toward a faith that is based on mixing what is True & Right with the influences of Satan’s current presence in the world.Satan knows what Absolute Truth is,& he knows that Absolute Truth ultimately reveals God’s Glory & and our need for God’s Glory to save us from the wiles of Satan’s propaganda that is vying with Absolute Truth.This war for our minds/hearts/lives is a real and present danger for us that God is lovingly making us aware of by revealing this third challenge we face.Romans 1:18-20 also addresses it,”For the wrath of God(God’s Righteous Judgement of Truth vs UNtruth;Righteousness vs UNrighteousness)is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world,in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.”So, we must constantly be aware of the battles going on around us over Absolute Truth...,Truth which Reverence for Almighty God and His Word are the foundation-Proverbs 1:7,”The fear of (awesome reverence for) the Lord is the beginning of knowledge (absolute Truth),but fools despise wisdom and discipline.”This says that True Wisdom must be assimilated into and through our lives = discipline! Believing God’s Truths without applying God’s Truths in all we are is exactly the danger of this third challenge!Unless we make God’s Truths an integral part of all we are (discipline),then this 3rd challenge will draw us away from a Right & True relationship with The Lord....and a creeping toward a faith based on a “mixed bag of half-truths-half-lies”.That is what this 3rd challenge is about.This creeping may begin with lives/disciplines that are made mushy and muddy by lack of the discipline Proverbs 1:7 calls us to.

If we heed the warnings that Revelation 2:13-15 talks about,& we discipline our ideas;practices;behaviors;& paradigms...,our hearts/minds/lives with the Absolute Truths that God has made clear through all HE has done and said throughout all time, then HE promises to take care of our absolute needs and bless us with an Eternal Identity that will define who & what we were created by Almighty God to be forever->Revelation 2:17,”Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who is victorious, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give that person a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to the one who receives it.”There is no greater TRUE Peace and TRUE Joy than this....all others will never be as Lasting,nor as Deeply & Truly Fulfilling.Therefore, we need to always be truing up what we hear;see;read;& experience & do with God’s Word and all that HE has shown and proven throughout all time.This is the 3rd challenge! Dear Lord,please help me to know whenever a creep of any kind begins in me...may You also place people around me that are devoted to You, and love me enough to make me aware of any slow changes/creeping away from Absolute Truth occurring in the way I think and live.And through Your Grace May I be the same for those around me.

The next thing that The Lord brings up are the challenges to the endurance of our faith that can negatively effect our ability to hear His Voice in our heart&spirit.These challenges are 2 basic strategies connived by Satan (Rev2:9-10,”... I know about the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for ten days. Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you life as your victor’s crown.”).Both strategies are the same,but they come from 2 different groups of people.The first group  are the pious & religious people that will think that good & bad circumstances are a direct relationship with God’s “approval”&”disapproval”of our hearts/minds/life,and they will look down their noses on others that are suffering in some way.The second group will have the same disapproval of our lives because of challenging circumstances,but they are just being what they are-people with no reason to have a true Eternal Perspective on life,& no basis to know God’s Perspective and His Eternal Love Purposes for those who truly love The Lord & desire His Purposes for life(Romans8:28”And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”).Both groups are basically being used by Satan to wear down the faith of those that are enduring life’s challenges because of their overriding Trust in God’s Awesome Love, His Love ultimately demonstrated by the Life & Death & Resurrection & Ascension of Christ.This absolute Trust is what shores up the Enduring Faith that Jesus teaches us to have in these verses!And it is one of the “elements” imperative to a life that will know The Voice of God.Jesus’ Spirit ends this section by saying “He who has ears,let him hear what the Spirit says....He who overcomes (these challenges through Enduring Faith)will not be hurt at all by the second death.”This is where Jesus is calling us to the Eternal Perspective that inspires us to seek HIM and follow Him no matter what...for a life that only comes through HIM,with HIS Promise for Eternal Life with Him in Heaven.This is also the foundation for a life with purpose that Romans 8:28 talks about,& a life that God Himself causes ALL THINGS to work together for our GOOD.Dear Lord, I confess that I do not have this endurance...and that I need Your Spirit to teach me and help me to have this endurance...so I may know Your Voice...and Your Purposes for my life.