Man Up

I can give you a thousand reason to quit: You’re tired, you’re burnt out, you got hurt by a church, you really don’t want to have to work under another eldership that doesn’t understand what you do, you’ve bought into the idea that the church isn’t relevant, your program presented got shot down (again), you have spiritual doubts, you’re human and you sin, someone lied about your, your motives were questioned, you don’t get any appreciation for your work, you feel ineffective, you could make more money working fewer hours doing something else, you experienced a deep loss, you are tired of having vacations cut short, time with your family interrupted, you’ve grown weary of the lowest spiritual person controlling your future with a senseless complaint, you don’t feel like anyone has your back. Need I go on? You could easily add to and double this list?

This is hard work. I’m not sure who first helped satan spin the lie that it was anything else. It certainly wasn’t Jesus, Peter, Paul, or Mary.

Over the past 250+ weeks via this Monday missive, we have tried to encourage you to not. We’ve presented reasons, we’ve talked about the rewards, we’ve given illustrations of others, we’ve communicated the value and significance of this work. You know we love you and want the very best for you and your ministry.

Today, I want to say clearly. Man up. Sometimes you just have to hang in there. Sometimes you just keep on. Sometimes you just trudge through the mud till you get through it. Those men who do the most good, who influence the most people, and who are the most effective had the same sorts of arrows shot at them that you have, they just determined to persevere. That is some of what Paul was communicating in 1 Corinthians. 

“Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong” (1 Corinthians 16:13 KJV).

“Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 15:58 KJV).

“As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry” (2 Timothy 4:5, ESV).

Be a man. God’s man. Don’t quit.