New Season Fast, Day 4: Don’t Quit!

Beloved, are you so discouraged and frustrated that you wish you could just walk away from it all? If so, you are not alone. But, friend …

There’s a difference between stopping and quitting. And today, I want to encourage you NOT to do the latter.

The way I am referring to it, stopping is when you’re doing something you know isn’t good for you, or isn’t holy, or whatever. And you purposely choose to walk away from something that hinders your life, so you can walk into what IS best for you: God’s best for you.

But quitting is completely different.

Quitting is when you are doing what you know you need to be doing, but for whatever reason–discouragement, loneliness, weariness of spirit, lack of resources, sadness, whatever–you decide to walk away from it. You walk away from God’s best for you and into the path of wandering …

… because you got tired of holding out for so long …

… or because you just didn’t want to hold out any longer …

… or because your flesh was just tired of the pain.

Beloved, I understand both stopping and quitting.

I have stopped any number of things, although to be honest it’s God Who has delivered me from things that I needed to stop in the past. But quitting …

… although I haven’t quit yet, and I hope and pray that I never do, I will tell you that I want to quit nearly every day.

That is, my flesh wants to quit. My emotions sometimes want to quit too. But my spirit feels like it’s hanging on by the skin of my teeth, as they say.

However, friend, I want to encourage you today: don’t quit!

I agree that quitting sounds awesome. Hanging in there, frankly, stinks a high percentage of the time. It’s hard on the flesh, hard on the emotions, difficult for the mind. And even in the middle of a season of fasting and prayer, when hopes are high and faith starts out high …

… but sometimes God takes His sweet time to show you any results at all, and you were convinced that breakthrough would come sooner than it does or has …

Friend, your destiny is not found in the path of quitting.

Your destiny is found in the path of perseverance. You simply MUST persevere in order to receive your inheritance in the Lord.

Look at this Scripture from 1 Peter chapter 5:

“But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you” (1 Peter 5:10 NKJV).

It’s easy to quit. Persevering is hard. Suffering is required on the path to being perfected, established, strengthened, and settled.

But the suffering is worth it, friend. And we have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin, as Jesus did and gave His very Own blood for the effort (which He won). No one has whipped or scourged or crucified you and me in the physical. But that’s how far Jesus took His effort to vanquish the works of darkness.

And He succeeded.

So I want you to know this, friend:

Your perseverance is worth it. Your fight is worth fighting. Your destiny is worth hanging in there for. Because it’s really all about Jesus.

It’s all about seeing the Lamb Who was slain receive the reward of His suffering. And we can’t do that if we give up on His plan; if we walk away from His call; if we take our hands off the plow and decide that paying the price of obeying the Lord isn’t worth it anymore.

Beloved, you could quit … but you can’t quit.

Don’t quit. I’m not saying this without realizing how hard it is. I’m not issuing trite phrases here with no revelation about the pain of hanging in there. Believe me, my flesh would like me to quit the ministry even right now, and my flesh could walk away happily.

But, as believers, we are not governed by the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, or the pride of life. Instead, we walk in the Spirit, and we do not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. These decisions cannot be governed by the flesh, or by fleshly weakness and fleshly unwillingness to persevere. We have to hang in there, clinging to Jesus with our fingernails if need be, and walk forward with Him.

All that the Lamb Who was slain would receive the reward of His suffering in and through us.

Beloved, no matter what’s happening with you right now, don’t quit.

If you’re doing something unfruitful or unholy, by all means, stop. But when it comes to obeying God, and your destiny, and persevering when your persevere-er is worn out and you don’t want to go anymore …

… stop and refresh yourself in the Lord.

Strengthen yourself in the Lord as David did when he found the city of Ziklag to be sacked, and his and his men’s wives and families missing. And, like David, if you will strengthen yourself in the Lord, I believe you will also (like David) hear the voice of the Lord encouraging you to go on, “for you will surely recover all.”

Did you need to hear this word today? Is the Lord speaking to your heart? If so, leave a comment below!