Stay When It's Hard | Restoring Warriors Daily Devotional | Matthew 27:55-56

In today’s devotional, we reflect on the quiet but powerful faithfulness of the women at the cross. While others fell away, they stayed—demonstrating that true devotion isn’t about being in the spotlight, but about refusing to walk away when life gets painful and obedience becomes costly. God is looking for steadfast hearts that remain close to Him, even in the midst of suffering and unanswered prayers.

Reflection Question: Are you following Jesus only when life is going well, or are you committed to staying close even through disappointment and hardship? Let us know in the comments how you are choosing faithfulness today.

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Transcript

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For years, they had faithfully served in this ministry behind the scenes, meeting practical needs. Hey, welcome back to the Restoring Warriors Daily Devotional, where every day we challenge men to boldly pursue the calling that God has placed on their lives. Hey, and if you're a man that's looking for a community of other like-minded men, men who are boldly pursuing Christ, pursuing the calling that God has in their life, pursuing sanctification, pursuing a partnership or a group where iron sharpens iron, then I want to invite you over to our school community. It's free to join. You can go to restoringwarriors.com, click on join a group, and we'll direct you over to our school community. Can't wait to see you over there. All right, we're back in Matthew chapter 27. Today we're in verses 55 and 56, and we're coming up here at the end. All right, there's only a couple, but probably about a month left that we're going to spend in the book of Matthew. It's been an incredible journey, about a year and a half it's taken us to get to this point. So I'm excited to see where God leads us next. All right, verses 55 and 56. Many women were there watching from a distance. They followed Jesus from Galilee to care for his needs. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of Zebedee's sons. All right, so the spotlight, it oftentimes falls on all of the disciples, but at the cross, at the cross, it's a group of faithful women who quietly demonstrate unwavering devotion to Jesus. They couldn't stop the crucifixion, they couldn't change the outcome, but but they refused to abandon Jesus in his in his moment, in this lowest moment that he that he was facing. For years, they had faithfully served in his ministry behind the scenes, meeting practical needs without recognition, without the need for recognition. And now, when following Jesus offered no applause, all right, it offered no reward, no, no notoriety, only grief and danger, really, they stayed. All right, faithfulness isn't always doing something extraordinary. Oftentimes it's simply refusing to walk away when life gets painful, all right, when prayers seem unanswered, or when your obedient seems like it's costly, like it might cost you something. Like, like in this case, maybe your life, right? Many people follow Jesus when the miracles are happening, all right? But few remain when the cross comes into view. Right? God isn't only looking for spectacular moments of faith or spectacular acts of faith. He's looking for steadfast hearts that stay close even during the suffering. Right? So I want to hit you with a challenge today. And this challenge is to identify one area, one area in your life where you've been tempted to give up. Maybe it's your marriage, maybe it's in your faith altogether. Maybe you want to walk away from the church, maybe it's your family, maybe it's your ministry, maybe it's your calling, right? You know God's placed on your heart, but it's been hard and you're tempted to walk away. All right, but today I want you to choose faithfulness over the feelings that you might be feeling. Right? Stay, stay in that place where God's called you. Stay there, trusting that He's working on you and that He's working on an outcome, even when you can't see the resurrection yet. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, give me the kind of faith that that remains, that remains when life gets difficult. Lord, and help me to serve you faithfully, whether anybody else notices it or not. When I don't understand what you're doing, Lord, keep my heart close to you. Teach me to trust that your greatest victories often come after the darkest days. It's in the name of Jesus we pray. Amen. Hey, thank you for tuning in today. If you were encouraged by this devotional, I encourage you to send it to a friend. Uh, make sure you like, make sure you subscribe to the channel, leave a comment. All of us, all of that helps us spread the gospel to more and more people. It's an absolute pleasure doing ministry with you every day. Can't wait to see it on the next one.