Raised to Stay: Persevering in Ministry When You Have a Million Reasons to Walk AwaySample

Reasons Not To Quit

You may be asking, why does it matter if I choose to walk away from ministry or if I choose to stop attending church or calling myself a Christian? So what if I’m ready to walk away from Jesus altogether?

We can’t quit, because if we quit …

We will never see God work it all out for our good.

We won’t get to see beauty from those ashes.

We won’t get to experience the living hope we have in Jesus Christ.

We won’t see what happens when we let him fight for us.

We may not witness reconciliation and redemption in our story and the lives of others.

We won’t know the exhilarating exhaustion of running this race and hearing, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

In 1 Peter 1:3-7, we read:

What a God we have! And how fortunate we are to have him, this Father of our Master Jesus! Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we’ve been given a brand-new life and have everything to live for, including a future in heaven—and the future starts now! God is keeping careful watch over us and the future. The Day is coming when you’ll have it all—life healed and whole.

I know how great this makes you feel, even though you have to put up with every kind of aggravation in the meantime. Pure gold put in the fire comes out of it proved pure; genuine faith put through this suffering comes out proved genuine. When Jesus wraps this all up, it’s your faith, not your gold, that God will have on display as evidence of his victory. (MSG)

I love that part of the scripture that says one day we will be healed and whole. That is why we cannot quit: one day he will make all things right and new.

We keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, and we’re honest with our fears as he calms the waters around us. He won’t fail us!

Make a list of the things you’d miss out on if you quit on the church and the church’s Savior.