Key Principle #7: Perseverance (part 2)
Read Acts 5:12-42
Perseverance is especially needed by the church. Too often, we are not taught that the rewards of perseverance may in fact be persecution. In the west, it hasn’t as yet resulted in imprisonment, at least not commonly, but we are seeing more and more the world protesting the church when it takes Scripturally accurate stands for Christ.
This happens in the church and it happens in the world. Maybe at work, you are doing everything you should be doing, but the person in the next cubicle gets the promotion because he went to the bar with the boss and brown-nosed his way to the top. Or you missed getting the title of valedictorian because someone else transferred into your school and the grades transferred in by her weren’t as academically demanding as yours were.
There are times when a person will consistently tithe and follow God’s leadership and still face financial setbacks or even bankruptcy. A spouse will faithfully keep her marital vows and follow the Biblical commands for a godly marriage, yet see her husband commit adultery and file for divorce. Parents will faithfully train up their children in the way they should go, and yet never see their prodigals come back to the Lord, even when they grow old.
Whenever I would lead mission trips, especially with teenagers, I would teach the team two simple rules to go by. Rule Number 1: There is a God. Rule Number 2: You are not Him! The point is that we have to follow the rules and that we don’t make them up. Somebody has to be in charge and that typically is not going to be a group of kids who may think they are smarter than the youth minister.
Still, we typically think that because God doesn’t play by our rules and because He doesn’t answer our prayers the way that we want Him to, somehow He has failed us. But look in the Bible and you and I can quickly see that God has “failed” a whole lot of people from their point of view, but in reality, He really does know what He’s doing.
Have you memorized Galatians 6:9? “Let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season, we shall reap if we do not lose heart.”
Have you memorized Galatians 6:9? “Let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season, we shall reap if we do not lose heart.”
Dear Lord, help me to remember that You alone are God and I
am not.
When I want to question You, let me instead trust You.
Do not let me lose heart.
When I want to question You, let me instead trust You.
Do not let me lose heart.
Amen.
