Growth Hope

Persevere in the Pursuit

The Christian life isn’t for the faint of heart.

As much as people may think the religion is a crutch, if you really set your life upon doing the things Christ has called you to do, you will quickly realize that it is not an easy journey.

Sometimes this reality might hit us more forcefully than other times. Like when we’ve failed at doing the things that God has called us to do.

We may diligently strive to live a life pleasing to God, working day after day for His glory, and yet in a moment we may feel that all that work is wasted when we do something that we know we shouldn’t. We may daily fight against our flesh, and in an instant spectacularly fail, not even comprehending why we relinquished the fight.

Even the apostle Paul felt this way. He wrote:

For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.

How many of us can identify with these words?

We want to live a life pleasing to Christ, but sometimes we fail.

Yet, just because we’ve messed up, doesn’t mean that we give up.

We persevere in the pursuit of God because that’s the mark of one who is saved.

And just because we can’t be faultless, doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be faithful.

After all, He continues to be faithful to us.

Disclaimer – For those who may be tempted to think that because we can’t be faultless our continued pursuit of holiness doesn’t matter, please make sure you read Romans 6.

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Hope

Jump Start

Recently, I was listening to a radio DJ recount an early morning phone call he had received from his mother. Like most early morning phone calls, this one came as the result of something sorrowful that had happened. The DJ’s aunt, whose body had been riddled with polio for years, had succumbed to cancer. Days before, when talking about her impending death, his aunt described how she was looking forward to finally running again, as the polio had made her legs useless. She eagerly anticipated her glorified body that she would enjoy for eternity.

As I listened to the DJ talk, it made me realize that although Heaven is often talked about as a place of rest, it’s not a place void of activity. Most of us, I imagine, will spend our first few minutes in Heaven in a full-on sprint running to Jesus’ feet. We won’t want to waste a single moment as we get about the business of Heaven, enjoying an intimate and unimpeded relationship with our King.

And since that’s what we’ll be about for eternity, it makes sense that we should begin now. As Scripture often teaches, we should be running hard towards Christ; after all, for eternity, our focus will be on Him. In Heaven, it makes sense that we would want be as near to Him as we possibly can be, enjoying the blessings of His presence, and so we should strive for the same here on Earth. And while the intimacy we’ll experience then is far greater than anything we can experience now, the smart runner would work on closing the gap. The passionate pursuer would want to to get a jump start now on what they’ll be doing for eternity.

Why wait?

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