As we weigh in the options to leave or keep fighting we can do what Jesus did. We can pray. I know that doesn’t sound like the solution we are looking for. But although the cup wasn’t removed from him, he did get the strength to stay, Luke 22:43. And let me tell you, it takes a lot of strength, strength from above to stay. We think quitting is courageous but I think staying takes more courage. But that’s what God does. He gives us staying power as he did his son. 

We are living in a world that glorifies quitting for better options. They say if you don’t like that job then get another one or go into business. If that man isn’t meeting your dreams then leave, girl, and get into the market. If that church isn’t giving you the experience then hop to another one or stay at the bedside a few Sundays. This goes against the grain and culture of our parents and theirs before. As we poke holes in traditional beliefs we quickly seem to throw out everything we consider old-fashioned. Any sight of a possible green pasture or any smell of something toxic and we are out of the door. But are we doing better for it? Are we more fulfilled than our parents who held on to one or two jobs for the rest of their lives? Are we happier moving to the third divorce? How are we finding that fourth congregation that we are now part of? These are hard questions and there may well be times when quitting is the best and most godly thing to do. But I think we are doing it so quickly.
Sometimes I wonder where our world would be if the people who came before us were quitters. Where would Christianity be if at the first sign of trouble missionaries got into their ships back home? Where would our democracies be if at the first sign of resistance they caved in? What about the world of medicine, technology, invention and innovation? Almost everything we enjoy today took years of hard work to come to be. It was born out of sacrifice and a hundred failures before the one success story. We sit now and type on the shoulders of those who labored hard without quitting. We preach the Gospel of which many shed their blood so we could hear it. We live in countries established on the blood of martyrs. The question is what will outlive us beyond the comfort we now enjoy? Will we join our heritage of hardwork and commit to something to the end? Will we fight the battle at the trenches sometimes despairing of life itself? Or will we quit because it’s just too hard?
Think about Jesus at the garden of Gethsemane.
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God has graciously given Christ and his death as the fully adequate means of dealing with sin and of including human beings of all types within his people (Galatians 1:4; Galatians 3:13–14; Galatians 4:5). To accept this gift but to insist on conversion to Judaism in addition to it is to examine God’s gift and judge it inadequate to the task God claimed it would accomplish.

Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. 3I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law.4You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace.5For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness.6For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.Galatians 5:2–6
The Spirit Testifies
The importance of Paul’s warning in these two verses is clear from the expression “Look” followed by an emphatic reference to Paul himself (cf. 2 Cor. 10:1) and the repetition of the warning in a second, explanatory sentence (cf. Gal. 1:9). A Gentile’s acceptance of circumcision was a sign of full conversion to Judaism and of a willingness to submit to the Jewish law as a way of life (e.g., Josephus, Jewish War 2.454; Jewish Antiquities 20.36–48). From Paul’s perspective, such a step would signal a lack of confidence in the effectiveness of Christ’s death to redeem the believer from the law’s curse and a vote of confidence in one’s own ability to keep the law and receive life by that means.
Paul has already argued at length, however, that the law requires total obedience from those who want to receive life by keeping it (Gal. 3:10, 12). This is something not only that no human being can do (Gal. 2:16; 3:11) but also that God did not intend when he gave the law (Gal. 2:21; Gal. 3:21). God gave the law to reveal the depth of human sinfulness and to prepare for the fulfillment of his promises to Abraham through the faith of both Jews and Gentiles in the gospel (Gal. 3:22).
In Romans 7:2, 6, Paul uses the Greek construction here translated “you are severed from” (katērgēthēte apo) to speak of believers’ freedom from or release from the law. The expression communicates that the object of the preposition has no impact, for good or ill, on the subject of the verb. Here, then, Paul uses the phrase to underline what he has just said about the person who adopts the Mosaic law in Galatians 5:2–3: that person has opted for the law over Christ, and this is the same as rejecting Christ altogether.
Paul explains why this is true in the verse’s final clause, “You have fallen away from grace.” God has graciously given Christ and his death as the fully adequate means of dealing with sin and of including human beings of all types within his people (Gal. 1:4; Gal. 3:13–14; Gal. 4:5). To accept this gift but to insist on conversion to Judaism in addition to it is to examine God’s gift and judge it inadequate to the task God claimed it would accomplish. It is to give God’s gift of Christ’s atoning death a lukewarm reception and thus express distrust in God.
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On the third day, the Lord Jesus rose and put on bodily immortality. His resurrection was unto glory. He was the firstfruits of the future resurrection of God’s people. When Jesus returns, he will raise the dead (John 5:28–29). And this time the dead who come to life will not die again.

We know that when people die, their bodies stay dead—which is why our mouths drop open and our eyes widen when we read biblical stories of dead people coming back to life. The God of heaven and earth is the God of life.
In the Old Testament, there were three occasions when people died and came back to life.

In 1 Kings 17:17–24, Elijah raised a widow’s son.
In 2 Kings 4:18–37, Elisha raised the Shunammite’s son.
In 2 Kings 13:21, a dead man revived when his body was thrown into the same place as Elisha’s bones.

In association with Elijah, one person came to life. In association with Elisha, two people came to life. That second person’s restoration to life confirms the greatness of Elisha’s ministry. This second person who was raised from the dead in 2 Kings had merely been thrown in the same place as Elisha’s bones. And “as soon as the man touched the bones of Elisha, he revived and stood on his feet” (2 Kgs 13:21). The fact that Elisha himself was dead is a confirmation of God’s power working through the prophet’s ministry—even in a posthumous scene like 2 Kings 13:21.
These three stories in the ministries of Elijah and Elisha tell of bodies brought to life that would later die again. Bodily restoration foreshadowed the physical glorification of God’s people, so it was not equivalent to this glorification. The Old Testament resurrections were of mortal bodies that remained mortal.
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