WE ARE NOT ALONE

There is something Paul said in Acts 20 that I think we need to pay attention to. Paul was on his way to Jerusalem. He had somewhere he needed to be and he was in a hurry to get there. He could have simply passed through, but he stopped at Miletus and called for the elders of the church at Ephesus.

Why?

Because he knew he was not going to see them again, and he wanted to leave something with them. He wanted to strengthen them. When they arrived, Paul began telling them about his own life among them. He reminded them of how he had served the Lord, the humility with which he served, the tears, the opposition, the things he had endured.

Then he said something that I find very powerful:

But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy...

— Acts 20:24

Notice that Paul did not say that nothing happened to him. A lot happened.

He had tears. He had temptations. There were people waiting for opportunities to attack him. The Holy Spirit had even warned him that bonds and afflictions were waiting for him in Jerusalem.

So Paul knew what was ahead. Yet he said, "None of these things move me". That is strength.

Not that you don't feel anything. Not that you don't have difficult days. It is that what is happening around you does not get to decide whether you will continue with God.

PAUL KNEW WHAT IT MEANT TO HAVE PASSION

Think about Paul's life before he met Jesus.

Paul was not a disciplined man.

He was educated. He was intellectually strong. He understood the system he was operating in. He had influence. He had the confidence of the people around him.

And he was passionate.

No matter what you think of him, he was very useful to the kingdom of darkness at that time. Satan could rely on Paul to get his dirty work done.

When there was a need to go after Christians, Paul was not the man they had to beg to go. He wanted to do it. He had made it his personal mission.

He was so committed to destroying the Christian faith that he was willing to travel to other places to look for believers.

That tells you something about him. Paul did not just give his body to the cause. He gave his passion.

This is important because the devil does not always capture people's desires alone.

Sometimes he captures their passion.

A person can be very passionate and still be moving in the wrong direction. You see this sometimes when people who once knew the faith become very vocal against it. They still have the energy. They still know the language. They still know the arguments. They are just using the same passion in another direction.

But look at what God did with Paul.

God did not say “I cannot use this man because he is too passionate.”

God took that same man and redirected the passion. The person who was trying to destroy the Church became one of the people who built the Church.

This is one of the things I find beautiful about God. God knows what He is doing. Sometimes what the enemy has tried to use against God becomes an instrument in God's hand.

Your passion matters. And when you are born again, God does not just want your attendance. He wants your heart. This is something we need to pay attention to. It is possible to “serve God” and not be passionate about his plans for the world and your life. And I am not talking about people who are lazy or who are not committed. You can be committed and still have lost something inside. You can still attend meetings, carry out your responsibility, be dependable but something has changed.

You are doing what you are supposed to do, but the fire is no longer there.

That is why we need edification.

Sometimes a person does not need somebody to tell them that they are failing. They already know.

What they need is strength.

WHEN YOUR LEG GOES NUMB

There is a simple picture that helps me understand this.

Sometimes you sit for a long time and put your weight on one leg. After a while, you want to stand up and the leg is not co-operating.

You know the leg is there, but you cannot properly use it.

So what do you do? You start stamping your feet. You move the leg around. You wait.

And after a while, you begin to feel it again. Life is coming back.

I think there are believers who are like that spiritually.

They know there is more, they want to pray, but they don't know how to pray anymore. They want to continue, but they are tired. They want to believe, but disappointment has done something to them. They want to serve, but circumstances have taken something out of them. They are not necessarily rebellious. They are just weak, this is where edification becomes important.

Sometimes the church meeting is that stamping of the feet. Someone comes in spiritually numb and hears the Word. Somebody shares a testimony. Someone says something that reminds them of God's faithfulness.

And suddenly something begins to move again. It is like putting one battery against another battery so that the one that has gone down can start again.

That is edification.

It is strength being transferred.

YOUR EXPERIENCE CAN BECOME SOMEONE ELSE'S STRENGTH

This is why, when we teach people, we should not only speak about faith as a theory. If you are teaching healing, there should be places in your own journey where you have had to trust God for healing.

If you are teaching faith, you should know what it means to believe God when you cannot see how something will happen.

If you are talking about ministry, you should have walked through some things yourself. Because sometimes what somebody needs is not another principle.

They need to know:

Somebody else has been here and God brought them through.

That is why Paul spoke about his tears. He wasn't telling the Ephesians his story just to make himself look important, he was telling them “I have been here too.”

There are things we all go through, the details may be different, but it's the same spiritual curriculum. Paul is saying there will be days when it looks as though God is far away, days when you pray and nothing seems to happen.

You are doing the right thing and somehow things are not adding up. The devil knows how to use those moments, he amplifies them, he wants the situation to become so loud that you forget everything else God has said.

The purpose is to get you to a point where you say “This is not worth it anymore.”

SOME ROADS HAVE FIRE ON THEM

We need to understand this about the Christian life. Not every difficult road means you missed God. Sometimes the road is difficult because it is the road.

Paul was going to Jerusalem and the Holy Spirit had already told him that trouble was waiting for him.

Jesus also knew what was waiting for Him.

In Gethsemane, He prayed that if it were possible, the cup should pass from Him. That prayer tells you something.The cross was not easy. But the writer of Hebrews says Jesus endured the cross because of the joy that was set before Him.

There are things God has called some people to do that will require them to pass through some heat and fire. So we cannot always judge somebody's walk with God by how comfortable their life looks.

Some people have assignments that will cost them more. Some people are carrying things that you may never understand. This is why we need to stop being so quick to judge people who are going through difficult seasons.

Instead, we need to pray for one another as we see the day approaching.

WE ARE SUPPOSED TO STAND SHOULDER TO SHOULDER

We are a family. That sounds simple, but it has serious implications. If my brother is somewhere in a difficult place preaching the Gospel, I cannot live as though his battle has nothing to do with me. If somebody is struggling in ministry, I should not be looking for the day when they fail so that I can say “I knew it!”.

No...I should be thinking, How can I help this person stand?

Scripture tells us to bear one another's burdens. That is not just a nice Christian statement, Paul didn't add this so we can feel good about ourselves. It's an instruction. Our very lives depend on it. It is how the body survives.

Think about your own body, your mouth eats, but the mouth is not the only part that benefits. The food goes into the body because the whole body needs to live. That is how our strength should work.

You are not being strengthened for yourself alone. God strengthens you so that you can become strength to somebody else. This is why selfish Christianity does not make sense.

Someone is counting on you to keep fighting, you may not know it. Someone may be looking at your life and thinking, ”If this person can continue, maybe I can continue too".

Your faithfulness may be giving somebody else courage. Imagine for a second the early church decided to quit. Just imagine it for a second.

Thank God they didn't give up

Praise God!

Their doggedness has paid off. The fruit of their sacrifices abounds till date. You're here because they didn't stop. Now it's your turn

What will it be?

I know you'll be faithful. Because of this someone will come to Jesus, then another person will come...then another.

You may never know the full extent of what your obedience produced, but eternity will know. There are people whose sacrifices will only be properly understood when we stand before God.

Somebody may get to heaven and discover that their obedience became part of the story of thousands of people. That is why edification carries weight. Your strength is not just about today, it can have consequences that go much further than you can see.

PAUL DID NOT PRETEND THAT EVERYTHING WAS EASY

Paul had difficult seasons, he even said that they had despaired of life. So when Paul says “None of these things move me”, he is not speaking as someone who never had a bad day. He knew pressure. He knew disappointment. He knew pain.

But he had learned to lean on the grace of God. And that is where we have to get to.

Not to a place where nothing hurts, but to a place where pain does not get the final word.

James says that every good and perfect gift comes from above, from the Father of lights, ”with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning". God does not change because your circumstances changed. He is faithful when you are celebrating. He is faithful when you are crying. He is faithful when you understand. He is faithful when you don't.

So there will be days when you don't know what is happening.

Keep going.

There will be days when you feel like you cannot move.

Keep going.

There will be days when the road is foggy.

Keep going.

You don't have to understand everything before you remain faithful.

PETER REMEMBERED THE MOUNTAIN

I love what Peter does in 2 Peter 1. He talks about the faith they share. He talks about the promises of God.

Then he begins talking about the experience he had with Jesus on the holy mountain. Peter could have chosen many other memories. He could have talked about the storms. He could have talked about the nights they had nowhere to lay their heads. He could have talked about the difficult parts of following Jesus.

But he remembered the mountain top experience.

Why?

Because there are experiences with God that become anchors for difficult seasons.

When the storm comes, remember what you have seen of Him.

Remember what you know.

Remember the times He has shown Himself faithful.

The storm is real, but it is not the whole story. Peter had seen His majesty, he had heard the voice from heaven, he had encountered Jesus. That mattered more than the storm.

This is our testimony. That we found him.

Paul says “That I may know him”. That's our testimony, we know him, and we judge him faithful.

OUR TESTIMONY IS BIGGER THAN WHAT WE RECEIVED

Sometimes we reduce testimony to material things.

“I was poor and now I am rich.”

“I had a problem and God solved it.”

Those things can be testimonies, but there is something deeper.

He is faithful.

I have walked with Him.

I have known Him.

I have experienced Him.

I have seen that His Word is true.

John says:

That which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life...

John was not giving them a theory, he had encountered something. And then he says that he was declaring these things so that they could have fellowship with them—and ultimately so that their joy would be full. This is what we are trying to do for one another. We want people's joy to be full. We want people to know God so deeply that when difficult days come, they don't have to manufacture faith. They have something real to hold on to.

HEAVEN IS NOT UNAWARE

Hebrews says we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. God's heavenly family. The book takes us into the reality of Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, and an innumerable company of angels, general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, the spirit of Just men made perfect,

There is more happening around us than what we can see. The angels are seeing the faithfulness of God's people. They see people choosing Christ in difficult places. They see sacrifices. They see obedience. They see somebody kneel down and pray again after a difficult day. They see somebody continue preaching when quitting would have been easier. They see people remain faithful. There are things about our experience as human beings that the angels do not experience in the same way.

We know what it means to obey God while living in a body that gets tired, while facing circumstances that hurt, while not knowing what tomorrow will bring. And there is something about that faithfulness that displays the wisdom of God.

So don't think your obedience is insignificant because nobody is clapping. Heaven sees.

Heaven is cheering you on, your faithfulness brings much excitement in heaven dear missionary, dear servant of God. So run till the end, don't stop. Finish your course with Joy

WE HAVE TO FINISH

Paul said:

I want to finish my course with joy.

Not just finish, Finish with joy.

That is the goal. The devil wants to weaken your resolve, he wants you to become tired of the assignment, he wants you to look at the difficulty and conclude that it is no longer worth it, but he came late, because we already know who called us.

We already know who saved us, we already know who has kept us, and we know that this story does not end with whatever difficulty we are facing right now.

There is joy ahead. There is something waiting for us that makes the present struggle worth enduring.

So when you see somebody getting tired, don't push them away. Get close.

When someone is weak, don't make them feel ashamed. Strengthen them.

When somebody is struggling, don't turn their struggle into gossip.Pray for them.

And when you yourself are tired, don't disappear, let the body strengthen you.

This is why our assignment at Merciheart cannot only be about going out to preach, it must also be about making sure that those who preach can keep going.

Because the work is bigger than one person, the assignment is bigger than one person, and the harvest is bigger than one person.

We are standing together, shoulder to shoulder. One person's strength can help another person's in the days of weakness. One person's testimony can keep another person from quitting. One person's faithfulness can affect generations.

So whatever you are facing, remember this:

You are not alone.

There are people standing with you.

There is a family standing with you.

There is a heavenly reality surrounding this work.

And above everything else, God is faithful.

So keep pressing. Keep serving. Keep preaching. Keep praying. Keep believing.And when you finally finish your course,

may you be able to say what Paul said:

I have finished my course with joy.