HANGING IN THERE! ~ B
The treasure of our salvation is held by each disciple in fragile jars of clay (see 2 Corinthians 4:6). Yet clay can be so prone to crack.
Sadly God is accustomed to His people cracking, forsaking Him. He enquires of Israel, 'what fault have you found with Me that you have strayed so far from Me?" (Jeremiah 2:5)
He declares to His people:
consider then and realise how evil and bitter it is for you when you forsake the Lord your God and have no fear of Me. (Jeremiah 2:19b)
Hanging in there, surviving the long haul as a Christian requires a focus, a single-mindedness uncommon to both ancient and modern man.
The Bible instructs:
- Remain true to the Lord with all your heart ... and continue in the grace of God. (Acts 11:21, 13:43c)
- We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard so that we do not drift away. (Hebrews 2:1)
- We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly to the end the confidence we had at first. (Hebrews 3:14)
The truth of Jesus as the son of God, His death and resurrection for the forgiveness of sins, and the reality of hell lost upon the promises of heaven remain as true today as when you first accepted them.
Refuse to permit temptation, hardship, weariness or spiritual lethargy to distract you. And likewise, refuse to permit naysayers and the ungodly to dissuade you.
The glory and the gold of this world ring hollow to the convinced Christian, these have nothing to offer save the choking of faith. (Don't forget the true value of gold, it is simply as tar for the streets of heaven. - see Revelation 21:21)
Remember what God did for you yesterday. He does not change and so will act in equal goodness for you this day and then forever.
Memory is a powerful tool of faith to fix our eyes on Jesus, and so reach tomorrow well.
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)
Today's Soul Snippet:
'The storms of life no more indicate the absence of God than clouds indicate the absence of the sun.' ~ anon
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