Don't give up

I was speaking with a dear soul recently who shared with me the past season of their life. Their desire to do good for others was clear but what was also clear was that this individual had become completely exhausted, both mentally and physically. They had found themselves at a point of questioning why they were even bothering to do the good they were doing.

Can you relate to that?  Have you ever felt depleted after helping the people in your life? Or perhaps a hard project at work or school had you completely exhausted. Work, family, friends, life… can make any one of us tired at some point.

In his letter to the Galatians, the Apostle Paul writes,

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.  (Galatians 6:9)

Paul was writing to encourage them in the good work they were doing because he knew that they too would become tired. He encourages them, and us, to persevere in doing good things.  But we are not called to do it alone and interestingly we are not called to do it for people.  If you look at the verse just above, it says that “whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life”. (vs 8)

The good work we do is to please the spirit, not people, and as a result of doing good we will reap a reward.

If you are a gardener you know how it goes. You work hard to prepare the beds and to plant the seeds (and whatever else you gardeners do), and then you wait (which can also be tiring), and sometimes you wait for a while before you actually see the fruits of your labour.

Paul reminds us that there will be a harvest for those who do not give up. 

So, don’t give up on doing the right thing to please the spirit.

Don’t give up on loving the difficult people in your life.

Don’t give up praying to a God that listens.

Don’t give up on living godly lives and helping those around you.

Scripture tell us if we don’t give up, there will be a reward for us. We may see that reward this side of heaven or not, regardless we should continue to do the right thing.

All that to say, your work matters. What you do matters. There is value to how you live and love others.

So today consider the good that you have done and can continue to do for others. How can you continue to persevere in living a godly life?

Watchful and thankful

I think sometimes we forget the immense power of prayer, I know I do. I forget in those heavy times in life how prayer moves the heart of God; how it changes our hearts, how it aligns us to what God is doing; how it wakes us up to God’s Holy Spirit, and how it makes us aware to the lies of the enemy.

Prayer is so powerful.

When I was a very new Christian my minister explained that prayer was just a fancy way of saying “talking with God”. I love that it is with God and not to God, because talking to is just speaking words and talking with is having a relationship. It’s implies communication, listening, taking in what the other is saying and responding to it.

In Colossians 4:2 the apostle Paul writes, so devote yourselves to… devote yourselves to prayer; devote yourselves to being a friend of God - conversing with God, communicating with God.

Then Paul says, being watchful and thankful. This idea of being watchful shows up in the New Testament several times.  The time that comes immediately to mind for me is when Jesus asks the disciples to be watchful when he is praying in the Garden of Gethsemane.  He wants his disciples to stay up with him, to be vigilant, to know what is going on, to keep their eyes open and stay awake… and that is what God is saying to us through Paul in this verse.

Be watchful.  God is saying know what is going on around you, take ground, be ready for when I open a door so you can run through it. Be ready for a moment for the kingdom to advance, and do it!

And also be thankful in your prayers.  It’s kind of two sides of the same coin…in one way we are taking ground like a soldier and in another we are looking back at God’s faithfulness saying this is who you are, thank you. As we thank God it increases our faith to be more watchful and vigilant for Him.

I encourage you today to devote yourself to prayer to be more watchful and thankful.It is so powerful, it will change your day. It will change your life.

Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. (Col. 4:2)

Learn all you can/Love all you can

When I first became a Christian, I knew I was way behind in my understanding of who God is, not to mention my knowledge of the bible. All the Christians I knew were born into Christian families, raised in the church, and had learned all the biblical stories from time they could walk.

I decided that I needed to know as much as I could. So after completing my BA/BSC I decided to go to Tyndale University to get a Master in Theological Studies (instead of enrolling in teacher’s college). That decision came with a great number of issues (a story for another time), regardless, I soaked in all the amazing teaching. But, you know what the say, “the more you know the less you know”. It was actually a bit frustrating. I remember confiding in one of the professors over lunch one day. I shared with them my desire to learn everything I could about this God I believed was the anchor of my soul. And they said to me, “so often Christians are educated beyond the level of their obedience.” 

Boom. That was the end of the conversation.

I was left a bit mystified. Was I being insulted? Were they telling me to stop learning? Should I un-enrol? What were they saying to me??

It wasn’t until years later that I got it.

Learning all we can is not a bad thing, actually it is a great thing —to learn the original biblical language of Greek or Hebrew, or the history of the bible — it’s all great, but what I believe my professor was saying to me is that if we, as followers of Jesus are not doing the very thing we are called to do, then really, what is the point?

For instance, John writes in 1 John 4:11 “Dear friends, since God so loved us, we ought to love one another.”

Honestly, living out this verse is not easy - it may actually be easier to learn greek - because this verse means loving the co-worker or classmate that gets on your nerves. It means loving the family member who has a completely different belief system or ideology than you do.  It means loving the spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend or even child who deeply hurt you. It means loving the friend that disappointed you. It means loving the mother or father that walked out on you. It means loving the person who’s social media post is just digging at you and getting on your last nerve (because honestly, nobody’s life is that perfect. Ugh)!

Learn, learn, learn as much as you can about this amazing God we serve but let’s not be more educated than the level of our obedience.

Since God so loved us, let us love one another.