Do you exercise regularly? If you do, you know it is mentally and physically hard to get back into a workout routine when you take a break, no matter how short. This past weekend was crammed full of great ministry opportunities but they required a great deal of my time. Our school’s FCA had our largest outreach event of the year on Friday night where over 1100 people from the community came out. It was an outdoor carnival set up complete with food and fun activities, followed by a speaker sharing the Gospel and ending with an evangelical movie at dark. There was a lot of work to be done leading up to this event which took a great amount of time and something had to go. My workout suffered for about 5 days. Today’s workout was a bear. Mentally and physically I wanted to quit, but I pressed through and completed it.
The same can happen to us spiritually with regard to our time with the Lord. When our schedules get crammed we might choose sleep or other things over time with the Lord for a few days and then starting back into a daily quiet time may be difficult. Luke 9:23 reminds us “Then He said to them all: ‘If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me.’” Jesus knew following Him would be difficult for us, if not impossible, if we didn’t do it daily. He knew we needed time with Him on a regular basis.
The enemy knows this too and will go to great lengths to try and get us to quit. Let us not forgot 1 Peter 5:8 “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” He is constantly looking for us to slip so he can attack and talk us out of making time with Jesus a daily practice. It takes discipline and self control to make it happen. We all slip from time to time; however, we must jump back into it and press on. Paul encourages us in Philippians 4:12 “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.”
Even the great apostle Paul struggled and had to press in and persevere. James 1:4 reminds us “Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” So what are you waiting for? Grab the Word of God, find a quiet place and jump in.