Never Give Up

DEVOTION
1 THESSALONIANS
NEVER GIVE UP
1 Thess 4:11-12
11 Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, 12 so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.
NIV
I don’t think I am a bragger or anything like that. In fact I do think I am a rather quiet type of person except of course when I am preaching. I do think that for the most part any noise anyone does make is just for a moment anyway. It is sort of like sticking my hand in a pail of water. I can splash it all around and make a big fuss, but when I take my hand out all the water goes back as if my hand was never there. I think sometimes that is what my life is like. I might make a few waves while I am here but it will not mean a whole lot after I am gone. So why not just live a quiet life? Why not just mind my own business and work on with my hands? What one minute, did that say work with my hands? Does that mean I should not ever stop working with my hands? Why I believe it does! No retirement for me. Of course not, I have always believed that. The world has indeed infiltrated the minds and hearts of way too may believers with this retirement thing. Work with my hands, continue to live a quiet life, stay out of the affairs of others, and do not meddle in other people’s business or their lives. Now when I preach or teach or write about the truth of God is that minding my own business? Am I not getting involved in the lives of others? How am I supposed to love them, serve others, be a part of the body of Christ, be depended on and be dependent on others as we all work together to be the temple of God? Maybe this is speaking to the whole of the body, and not just to me as an individual. Maybe the whole of the body of Christ, the whole church should make its ambition to live a quiet life. Maybe the whole church is supposed to mind its own business. I cannot help but think it is speaking to each person, to me personally. I must live in such a manner, loving, giving, serving others, but at the same time, not bragging about it, but being quiet, minding my calling, doing what God desires me to do, and doing it with humility. Living in such a manner that the non-believer can respect. Not being a Freddy free loader, but being a man with a solid work ethic. Each and every day of my life, I am to be the salt of the earth, the light of the world and a mirror reflecting Christ to a lost and dying world. Never give up!