Perhaps some reader has tried to be a Christian, but failed. If so why not try again? Great success does not always come from a single effort. Worthwhile things are worth trying and striving for, even if we must try again and again. In the year 1917 a tornado destroyed our home, blew us away and ruined our crops on a farm before it tore into Carbon Hill, Alabama, and left the dead and the homeless in its wake. But we did not give up and quit. The next spring we found ourselves planting again, and soon we were growing a crop.
Life is very much like that. Wars are not usually won by a single battle. But battle after battle must be fought before the victory belongs to those who win the last battle.
Very few spend a long life in the service of Christ without getting discouraged and, for the moment, giving up in despair. But those who overcome the world are they who (if need be) try again and again—who refuse to surrender to the evil one. If they fail, they go down fighting, soon to rise again.
It is easy to give up and quit when the going gets rough, as it most certainly will sooner or later. Long roads usually have some detours and rough places over which one must travel in order to reach the desired destiny. The Christian life is like running a race.
“Wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:1-2).
“I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air: but I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway” (I Cor. 9:26-27).
If one falls, he should get up and try again. The new birth is a sort of “Land of Beginning Again” (John 3:5). So is a restoration of an erring child of God. “Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him; let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins” (James 5:19-20).
- Gus Nichols; via The Encourager, the weekly bulletin for the Calvert City church of Christ, Calvert City, KY. Lance Cordle preaches for the congregation. He may be contacted through the congregation's website: http://www.calvertchurchofchrist.com
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