If you don’t want to give up, you’re probably not doing anything worth doing.
If you don’t want to give up, you’re probably not doing anything hard.
If you don’t want to give up, you’re probably not doing anything that is helping form you into the man or woman God created you to be.
If you don’t want to give up, you’re probably not growing BIG in Christ – big in His humility, holiness, endurance and love.
What God created you for will be hard. It will cause you to “grow weary”.
What Jesus calls you to – “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” – will be hard. It will lead you to “grow weary”.
So…
“Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” (Galatians 6:9) There’s nothing easy about doing good. In fact, Paul is saying that if you are “doing good,” if you are doing the right things, you will “grow weary”.
If you are doing what is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, praiseworthy – it will be hard and at times you will grow weary.
The measure, then, of our growth, of our faith, of our obedience, of our love is NOT that life easy and everything goes according to our plan. It’s that “we do not give up.” We do not give up. WE DO NOT GIVE UP We do not give up when life is hard and everything is not going according to our plans.
Because…
Paul says “in due season we will reap.” This means at the right time — a time known and determined by God. We often want to give up NOT because there isn’t a harvest. We want to give up because we don’t know what time it is. Is it still a season of sowing or is it finally a season of harvest? How do we know? “How long, O Lord, must I wait!”
In all our endeavors and efforts as disciples of Jesus, we must remember that Jesus came “when the fullness of time had come“ (Galatians 4:4). Jesus died “at the right time” (Romans 5:6). And if Jesus came and died at the right time, then He also rose at the right time.
The right time will come. Harvest and resurrection will come, but only after sowing and death. Only after weariness and endurance.
Elim Grace, if we confess that we are new creations in Christ, we have an assurance that God is working all things together for our good. Yet, we also have a responsibility to not give up – to be faithful to the end. We are to exercise, train and discipline ourselves to run the race to win it (1 Corinthians 9:24). We are to strain forward and press on towards the goal (Philippians 3:13-14).
In his pursuit of and obedience to Christ, Paul hid nothing of his weariness in doing good. “For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.” (2 Corinthians 1:8-9) There is no lack of faith in confessing that we are weary. There is no lack of faith in confessing we want to give up. For faith must confess its need, in order to look to the Giver for its supply.
Sometimes we think being faithful to Jesus is sheer determination of heart. And partly it is. But it is also the natural flow of a healthy soul. As a river flows to the ocean, so does our Spirit-created and -sustained faithfulness flow to Christ. In other words, weariness in faithfulness can be a sign of a healthy heart doing the right things. And the true test of our health and faith in Christ is that “we do not give up”. How? Why? The flow of our heart springs up from “the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit” (2 Corinthians 13:14).
So, Elim Grace, “since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:1-3) Let us not give up.