Everything that comes into your life, comes from the hand of your loving Father who gives you grace. Remember the fountain of that grace is the Lord Jesus Christ, and cling to him. Because he is the One who has purchased the crown of life and has guaranteed your reception of it. It is by his perfect obedience, death, resurrection, and ascension that he is now preparing this place for us. And he has sent us his Spirit as a guarantee and pledge, that we shall enter into that place. His resurrection and sitting there in heaven, is the guarantee of our resurrection and sitting with him in heaven. But he is also the example as we are taught in 1 Peter 2:21, that we enter into his glory by his sufferings. He persevered, he endured; that is the pathway. He has walked it. He shows us what it is going to be like. But then because he has purchased grace for us, he is the One that enables us to follow him in that pathway. Knowing that every sinful failure in the midst of our trials is pardoned, we come back to Christ for the grace of pardon, but for new grace. It is in Christ that we will persevere. It is in Christ that we will be approved. It is in Christ that we shall then inherit this perfectly, promised crown of life.1
Joseph A. Pipa
12 Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.