Don't Give Up

I know some new believers, people who are just beginning their faith journey or have not been on it very long and they see and feel the value in Church attendance, they experience the work Christ is doing in their life and have been able to validly connect it to a relationship with Christ and connection to His Church family. I also currently know people who have just recently become faithful to God with their tithe and offerings, and can also validly connect their personal financial blessing to the fact that they have become people who are obedient to God with their finances that He has given them.

Unfortunately on the flip side I see people who should be "mature" believers. People who have known Christ a long time. They know God's word yet they seem to have lost the sense of value in attending Church and making sure their kids are there and involved. They also have lost the realization that the reason their home was provided for was because they were faithful in their tithe. For whatever reason they slowly back off Church involvement and attendance. They also begin to waiver or even stop their giving to God and forget all they have is from Him. They some how grow cold or maybe what God would describe as "luke warm" in Revelation 3:16. Then one day they open their eyes and don't understand why life becomes so difficult and why their kids grow up wanting nothing to do with God or Church.

First for the new believers. Please learn from those of us who have gone ahead of you and our mistakes and even those who have made the mistakes before we did. We didn't take the time to learn from them and we should have. We could be avoiding a lot of turmoil in our life right now. Learn the lessons from the old Testament with Israel and how their love for God and trust in God grew cold. Read and see what God was willing to allow to have happen to them so they would come back to Him in full devotion and obedience. Learn it and don't repeat all the same mistakes God wishes we would avoid. Keep your fire for God and realization of who He is and that He is your source in every area of your life.

Second for us "seasoned" believers. Why did we season our self with lemon? We tell young believers "you'll understand someday" and "it's because your new". There maybe somethings they don't get yet but they will. But the lessons we want to teach them shouldn't be how to stagnate and walk away from God. We shouldn't model how to grow cold and let the fire burn out. Instead let's show them how to be inspired by the young believers. Show them that we are still teachable and can even learn from someone who is new in their faith and encourage them in their excitement for their new faith. Let's model what Paul talks about in Romans 12:11 "Never lose your zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord." Let's model that a mature believer doesn't just warm a seat and attends less but instead gets involved more and benefits from serving others. Let's show them that we have a deeper understanding of giving than is mentioned in Malachi 3. That a tithe was to test God and learn to give and we've grown beyond that. We now get the passage where Jesus shows the widow who gave her last two coins and in doing so went beyond filling a duty but understands God is our source and we can give it all and know he'll take care of us. It's our job to make sure that we light the way for those who come after us and not be a stumbling block instead.

I'll end with this... 1 Thessalonians 5:11"Therefore encourage one another and build each other up"

Let's challenge each other in our to do more and better than we've ever done. Because if we don't grow weary in doing good and right we will reap a harvest if we don't faint. PLOD ON!