It seems you have been diligently trying hard to be faithful in your work, but what kind of fruit are you bearing? Your spiritual level may be lower than what you expected, and some of you are still in the middle of trials. Let's now check if your fervor was the kind of fervor that God takes delight in. In doing so, let's make the seeds of faith you sow be borne as fruit of perfect blessings.
POINT 1. Does your fervor come from your love for God?
Some people are born with very active characters. They are responsible for their duties. They fervently participate in church activities. They show their fervor because they want to be recognized by others. But if they do not really see what they are doing, they might deceive themselves into thinking, "I am doing the work of God because I love God."
Those who are fervent in their love for God will seek the heart and will of God to determine what God really wants from them. They do not follow the ways they may consider to be good, and they do not try to achieve the goals they desire. They seek the goals and methods of God, and try to obey according to His heart and will.
You should be desperate and earnest for a greater measure of faith because you love God so much and you want to become a true child of God. Yet there are some people who think, "I've been as diligent as others, so why is it that I am considered lower in faith?" Or, "Since I hold the position I am in, I should have a level of my measure of faith so I don't have to be embarrassed about it." If you have this attitude it shows you want to fulfill your will.
If you want to fulfill your will before God's, you might learn the Word and pray diligently for some time but get tired and lose momentum if you do not get the results that you want. You may pray for one or two months, but if nothing goes as you want, you just stop. The reason for your diligence in prayer is neither of faith nor in love for God.
If you are doing your duties with true love for God, you will pursue peace with everybody. When you do your church duties, you should check whether you are doing it because you want to earn others' praise or because you really love God.
Also, you will not only do the works that are seen by others, but also the unseen works that are difficult and uncomfortable with a thankful heart. Even if you are sometimes wrongfully blamed for something that you did, you just quietly look to God.
POINT 2. Is your fervor unchangingly truthful?
Some people look very full of grace and appear fervent in their faith, but soon they are nowhere to be seen. Their passion cools down if things are not in agreement with their thoughts or their personal benefit.
Some others begin to neglect their life of faith because their mind is taken away by money or fame and other thoughts of the world. In other cases, they are diligent in their faith because they want to receive an answer from God such as divine healing or financial blessings, but their fervor cools down as quickly as not receiving an answer in the time and way they want. Some people attend all the meetings and serve their groups with money and physical service, because they long for the titles of the group. But if they do not get the positions they wanted, they do not come to the meetings any more. There are some people who actively participate only when they are in charge, but they do not cooperate and may even step aside and just watch when other people are in charge.
The Apostle Paul's fervor for the spreading of the gospel never cooled down during his ministry. Even when he did not gain any glory or substantial fruit, he was not disheartened. Even though his people, the Jews, followed him everywhere in attempts to kill him and the gentiles persecuted him saying he was interfering with the idol-worshiping, he did not stop spreading the gospel. In the church that he established with so much toil, there was news of adultery and other sins among the members, which made him grieve very much. Some workers betrayed and left him, and some others rejected him saying he was not qualified to be an apostle.
But he did not care about any kind of hardship. He was neither tired nor disheartened. He did not complain saying, "Why do I have to go through all this? Why wouldn't the Lord help me?" He never thought: "How much longer do I have to suffer?" or "I can't take this anymore"
Even after he was almost stoned to death, he left for the next destination of his mission trip right after he regained consciousness. Even after he was beaten, covered with blood, and put in jail, he praised God with a loud voice so his voice was heard by all the inmates. Even when he was in confinement and could not freely go about preaching, he sent letters to each church to reaffirm the faith of the leaders and believers. I hope your fervor for the Lord will be acknowledged by God as being truthful and never-changing like the fervor of the Apostle Paul.
POINT 3. Does your fervor come from gratefulness for God's grace of salvation?
For your fervor to be unchanging, you must never forget the grace you received from God. Apostle Paul was so passionate in fulfilling his duty because of the grace that saved such a person as him, for he considered himself to be the foremost of all sinners.
He lived his whole life with an attitude of thinking, "I am so grateful for the grace that saved me. I was persecuting the Lord; and now what great grace it is that the Lord gave me the duty of an apostle! How could I receive such a precious duty to spread the name of the Lord?" Although he suffered from hardship and persecution, he thought it his duty to spread the gospel and tried his best.
When you work faithfully with your gratefulness for God's grace, you will not desire praise or reward for your job well-done. Although you sacrifice and dedicate yourself, the grace of God given to you is much greater than anything you can give to God.
But the greatest grace of all the grace that you received is the grace of salvation. Especially, the world today is so full of sins, and even if you have heard the gospel and accepted the Lord, and though you may feel that you understand the will of God so clearly and you experience many powerful works it is still difficult to keep your faith. I urge you to engrave such grace more deeply so that you will become increasingly more fervent day after day.
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