DOING GOOD!

By Hayley Boud

Tonight’s message is an encouragement to keep doing good.  All of us need encouraging from time to time.  Even if you don’t need it tonight, maybe you will need it in the future.  All of us here began doing good works for God when we were first saved and all of us continue to strive to do good.  All of us!  Be encouraged, God sees your good work.

NIV “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up”. Galations 6:9

NAS “Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary”

Don’t lose heart in doing good.  Don’t grow weary or tired.  Every one of us will have a different role from God, a different desire that he has placed in our heart, a different work, each of us have different “doing good”.  Eph 2:10, ^“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”  Whatever is in your heart, whatever you know God wants you to do, don’t give up but keep persevering because at the proper time, you will see the result.

Sometimes we will be discouraged, usually with people but we have to keep going and not lose heart or grow tired.  We have to keep going because if we persevere we will reap at the end but only if we keep going.  If we give up somewhere along the way, we will be disappointed when Christ comes back.  E.g. I started learning French years ago but I found it a BIG work and people discouraged me and I gave up.  But four years after I started to learn, my class mates were graduating from university and they were now really good at French.  I was jealous, why did I stop?  I would be fluent by now if I had persevered.

We have to remember this with God’s work.  For example, if God wants me to ring people and encourage them but after two years I get tired and stop, I won’t see the fruit of that work.  Maybe through me, God was going to use the encouragement to bring people to salvation, or maturity in Christ but because I got tired, I won’t see that harvest fulfilled.

All of us have different works to do and all of those works are important and I just want to encourage you to keep going, even when you feel tired, or disappointed, or discouraged, or you might feel like it’s useless or doing nothing, or you lose your heart, or you lose the joy of doing it, keep going.  You will be happy when you see the end result.  Like Zoe last year with hip-hop, she was really tired, she worked so hard and sometimes she was discouraged, disappointed and she wanted to give up, but if she had, she would never have made it to the World Champs.

We have to remember that the word is “work” which means that it is a work.  It’s not something that is easy, it takes effort and it’s hard because we chose to become “servants” of God which means we are expected to work.  Just like our boss at our day job, he/she expects us to work 8 hours a day and to complete the job we have been given.  God expects at least 10% of our time and for us to finish the job He gave us.

The first step is to ask ourselves, what is the work that God has for me?  Everyone will have a different answer but we will also have the same answers because some “works” are expected from all Christians.  We are all expected to read the Bible, to pray, to intercede for others, to fast, to worship, to tell others about God, to encourage others, to visit the sick.  If any of these things feel like a work to you right now, if it feels hard….be encouraged, it IS hard sometimes to pick up the bible, it IS sometimes hard to fast, it is sometimes hard to say yes when someone asks you to take them to the supermarket or take them to the hospital, it IS hard, (especially when people are there to discourage you) but be encouraged and know that when you persevere, you will see a good result at the end.  At the end there will be a harvest!

So think about what things you know God is wanting from you, what is in your heart right now?  Now think about the end result if you continue to persevere.  If Zoe didn’t think ahead and keep in her mind, “World Champs”, she might not have continued to work so hard and she might not have made it.

For example, if God wants you to fast and pray every Tuesday for your mother to find salvation (just an example), try to imagine the final result that might come about because of your prayers.  How happy will you be when your mother is saved?  But in the mean time, you will be working hard, fasting and praying, with no encouragement from others, maybe even you will see your mother getting worse, maybe people will mock you for fasting or maybe when you fast, you feel sick.  You will find the work is hard but if keep persevering, keep your eyes on the end result, the harvest…..at the right time, you will see it being accomplished and then you will not even feel like you worked hard after all.