In the book of Revelation 21:8,  first on the list of those who won’t go to heaven are those who don’t have the attribute of courage. They have the opposite: cowardice or fearfulness. Scholars don’t believe this verse is about being afraid of heights or large tigers. Pastor Melvin Shelton states, “The fearful are those who care more about what man thinks of them than what God knows about them.”

A question to all of us in this day is do we have the courage to stand up against the unrelenting agenda of everyone else’s busyness pushed on us? A world that says if we don’t achieve X, participate in Y, don’t see those “wonderful 1000 places,” and eat and wear the latest, we are missing out on the human experience. And after all, it’s true you only live once! The tyranny of busyness always tries to push out God, and put prayer (our communion with God) down to the bottom of the list, because prayer can’t be easily quantified.

Here are a few things that we may want to ask God to help us have courage:

Let’s ask God that we would have the courage to trust him that he will fill in the missing parts of our lives, and we would not worry as we go about doing the good things he asks of us. Let us know God will not “leave us or forsake us.”

Let’s ask God that we would have the courage to forgive and leave the judgement of the world and the harvesting of the “tares and the wheat” up to him. That we would give over the energy that we have expended trying, thinking, and worrying about “getting even” and spend it on him. (Of course, this doesn’t mean giving up on doing our reasonable part in the civic government or God’s will in protecting the widows, orphans, the innocent etc…)

Let’s ask for the courage to love the person in front of us instead of always looking forward to the important person, the big deal, the friend or family member, or the person I know can return the favor.

Let’s ask for the courage to trust God for our desires. We often think that God is out to keep good things from our life. That is exactly what the Devil wants us to think; just as he convinced Eve that God did not have her best interest at heart and was lying to her when the truth was the opposite. (This deception is something that continues on and on today and will continue until Christ’s return).

Let’s have the courage to pray to get personal satisfaction from God. Let us spend our time focused more on God, serving those around us, and following his word. Let’s not worry that we could be missing out on all the world has to offer. The list of those ultimately disappointed in the world is too numerous to count. But that’s an article for another day.

Doug

The words of British poet Robert Abrahams say it well, “For some men die by shrapnel, And some go down in flames, But most men perish inch by inch, In play at little games.”  Our goal is to identify the little games and put a stop to them and put the right weight on the right things.