What does it mean to lose heart?
To lose heart is to lose our courage or lose the will to go on. It means to be utterly spiritless and worn out, to throw in the towel. It is more than discouragement. It's discouragement to point of quitting the race before it is over.
God forbid that any of us should throw in the towel of our gospel ministries! We are those who do not lose heart! We do not throw in the towel of displaying the glory of God to the world! To throw in the towel of the gospel is to have believed in vain, to make shipwreck of our faith.
There are glorious promises that tell us that if we have indeed received this ministry that we will indeed not lose heart (John 10:27-30 for one). No power of hell, no scheme of man can ever pluck us from his hand.
How do we keep from being among those who just give up?
We do it by fixing our eyes on the God-centered realities that describe us:
- But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. (2 Corinthians 2:14)
For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God’s word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ. (2 Corinthians 2:17)
Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God. (2 Corinthians 3:5)
Surely there are times when it is wise to consider changing the way and type of ministry that we are doing. But we should be very slow to interpret our present difficulties as an indication that we should quit.
Therefore we do not lose heart. Despite all the difficulties we do not throw in the towel. For though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day.
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