Avoiding Burnout In Your Walk With Christ

Isaiah 40:30-31 “Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint."

Often today, I hear about people who are burning out, wiping out, and shipwrecking their faith because they’re just tired. They’ve worked and worked their entire lives for the ministry until one day, they just decide it’s too much, so they quit. And some even become so jaded and burnt out that they completely abandon their faith.

I don’t want that kind of burnout to happen to me and I certainly don’t want it to happen to you. And the best way that we can be sure it won’t happen is by walking in the presence of Jesus and giving time for him each day. We do this by spending time in his Word, seeking his will in prayer, and fellowshipping with one another.

The best part of the Christian experience is walking day by day, one step at a time, with your God. When you do that, being faithful to your family, to your friends, and to your church will be a natural outflow of your walk with God.

AVOID BURNOUT IN THE CHRISTIAN LIFE BY WALKING IN THE PRESENCE OF JESUS AND SPENDING TIME WITH HIM EACH DAY.

Watch Me Work

Moses felt as low as a slug's belly. Way down there. He still hadn't rid himself of the idea that he was supposed to be the deliverer, and that he was somehow failing. How many times had God explained it to him? Yet, like many of us, he had trouble keeping a grip on the Lord's assurances.

Exodus 6:11 “Go in, tell Pharaoh king of Egypt to let the people of Israel go out of his land.”

"Go to Pharaoh, Lord? My own people just bought me a one-way ticket caravan back to Midian, and You want me to go back to Pharaoh? R-r-r-e—m-m-m-em—ber m-m-me? I'm the guy who can't t-t-t-talk. Shoot, I'd mess up a rock fight, Lord. I can't get it together. I'm at the end of my rope. How in the world are You going to pull this off?"

Moses didn't know it at the moment, but he'd put before the Lord the best proposition yet. I'm at the end of my rope. How are you going to do it?

Before we go any further, I'd like to underline a major truth in this world of ours that I don't pretend to understand. Here it is: the best framework for the Lord God to do His most ideal work is when things are absolutely impossible and we feel totally unqualified to handle it. That's His favorite circumstance. Those are His ideal working conditions.

In spite of the Lord's assurances, things kept going from bad to worse for Moses. He'd already gotten the worst of it in a meeting with Pharaoh, and now, in a subsequent parley with the Israelites, he found himself fresh out of credibility. They would no longer listen to him.

Time after time, He brings us to our absolute end and then proves Himself faithful. That, my friend, is not only the story of my life, it's the story of the Bible in a nutshell.

The Ultimate Question

Philippians 2:9-11 “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

  

When Jesus spoke to His disciples about His impending death and resurrection, it was lost in translation. They didn’t seem to get it. The problem was they had visions of grandeur. They envisioned Jesus establishing His earthly kingdom where they would rule and reign with Him, where everyone would live happily ever after. That is why, after the feeding of the 5,000, Jesus made them get into a boat and leave. The people had wanted to take Jesus and make him king by force.

Jesus was about to reveal something to His disciples they had not understood up to this point, and it was simply this: He would die on a cross. There would be a crucifixion. There would be a resurrection. There would be a Second Coming. And then His kingdom would be established.

So Jesus posed a very important question to them: Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” (Matthew 16:13). This question is still being posed to us today, and it is the most important question anyone ever will respond to.

They are really only four options, four responses to that great question Christ posed. Either Jesus was a legend, a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord. We know that He was not a legend, because there is more than enough historical evidence to clearly confirm that Jesus Christ lived and died at a marked point in time. Others will say that He was lying about everything He said, while still others would say that He was stark raving mad.

But we have to respond to this question Jesus posed. And ultimately everyone, everywhere will say that Jesus Christ is Lord. Christians, skeptics, agnostics, atheists, everyone—regardless of their religion—eventually will say that Jesus Christ is Lord when they stand before God.

Jesus posed an important question to His disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” What is your response to this same-asked question of you?

Avoiding Burnout In Your Walk With Christ

Isaiah 40:30-31 “Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint."

Often today, I hear about people who are burning out, wiping out, and shipwrecking their faith because they’re just tired. They’ve worked and worked their entire lives for the ministry until one day, they just decide it’s too much, so they quit. And some even become so jaded and burnt out that they completely abandon their faith.

I don’t want that kind of burnout to happen to me and I certainly don’t want it to happen to you. And the best way that we can be sure it won’t happen is by walking in the presence of Jesus and giving time for him each day. We do this by spending time in his Word, seeking his will in prayer, and fellowshipping with one another.

The best part of the Christian experience is walking day by day, one step at a time, with your God. When you do that, being faithful to your family, to your friends, and to your church will be a natural outflow of your walk with God.

AVOID BURNOUT IN THE CHRISTIAN LIFE BY WALKING IN THE PRESENCE OF JESUS AND SPENDING TIME WITH HIM EACH DAY.

Winning Walk

Psalm 119:165 “Great peace have those who love your law; nothing can make them stumble.”

(Form Dr. Ed Young) Some years ago I was jogging through Houston’s Memorial Park, and took a painful fall. My problem was that I relaxed my focus on the path to speak to another runner. Before I knew it I had stumbled and thudded to the ground, gashing my head and face. As we move through the world, it’s vital we keep our eyes on God’s path. If we do that we need not fear stumbling. For the ancient Jews, that meant constant observance of the Law. But in the New Covenant, watching the path means keep our eyes on our Forerunner, Jesus Christ. 

Who Will Be Our God?

1 Peter 3:15 “but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,”

Exodus 19:5-6 “Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.”

When Satan tried to get Eve to take the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, he put forth arguments that sounded convincing in her ears. He told her God was holding out on them. He said if they ate the fruit, they would be like God. He said God’s Word couldn’t really be trusted anyway.

There was something that Satan didn’t tell the first married couple. In disobeying God, they would be obeying Satan, making him their master. He knew that whomever we obey is our god. So the devil was not just offering Adam and Eve a bit of knowledge independently of God, he was offering himself as their new god. That is what he originally wanted as Lucifer, the angel of light. He wanted to be like God. We’re right back to the issue that caused the problems in the first place.

Deuteronomy 28:1-3 “And if you faithfully obey the voice of the LORD your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of the Lord your God. Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field.”

Camouflage

1 Corinthians 2:10-12 “these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.”

I’m fascinated by the way animals camouflage themselves in the wild. There is a fish in the Pacific called the Merlet’s Scorpionfish (Neat name for sure!). Scorpionfish blend perfectly into one particular type of coral. You can be staring at this coral and thinking to yourself, “My, oh my, that’s unique and beautiful,” and you would have no idea you were looking at a fish.

There’s an old phrase that my wife loves to use: “It’s hidden in plain sight.” This refers, of course, to something that is apparently obvious but that people still miss. If you know there is a fish in the photograph of the coral, you’re better able to spot it. It’s still tricky, but, eventually, you’ll see it—because you’ve been tipped off that the fish is there.

The apostle Paul is saying in this verse that the same is true with God. No one knows what’s really going on inside God’s mind unless He tips us off and reveals it through His Word and/or His Spirit.  How does He go about doing that? 

What we need has already been given to us: the Spirit.

Everything you need to live your abundant life you already have. He’s already given it to you. It may be “hidden in plain sight,” but you know it’s there. The Holy Spirit is the Teacher who wants to show it to you.

Prayer

2 Kings 19:14 “Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it; and Hezekiah went up to the house of the Lord and spread it before the Lord.”

Here is one of the best pictures of prayer in the Bible. Hezekiah is king over Israel when the cruel and powerful Assyrian army marches against them. Rabshakeh, the army’s spokesman, sends a threatening letter and tells Hezekiah not to trust in his God for deliverance.

Here was an enormous temptation and a trial, all wrapped into one little scroll. There is the imminent danger of being razed to the ground by the Assyrian empire; then there is the verbal prompting not to trust in God for a rescue.

But how does Hezekiah deal with this letter? He receives it, he reads it…and then he takes it straight to the Lord and spreads it before Him. What a wonderful picture of prayer! It is the spreading of our problems, our temptations, our struggles before the Lord in the face of every temptation to do otherwise.

Are you today wrestling with a temptation to sin that is threatening to conquer you? Spread it before the Lord. Is your heart weighed down with some terrible worry, or sorrow, or pain? Spread it before the Lord. Have you felt the weight of your guilt before a holy God for the first time? Spread it before the Lord.

No one has ever come to the Lord and gone away disappointed. Hezekiah did not, and you will not.

Stand Up!

1 Chronicles 5:22 “For many fell, because the war was of God. And they lived in their place until the exile.”

Warrior, as you fight under the banner of the Lord Jesus, observe this verse with holy joy, for as it was in the days of old, so is it now: If the war is of God, the victory is sure. The armies of God could barely muster forty-five thousand fighting men, and yet in their war with the enemy, they captured "a hundred thousand men," "for they cried to God in the battle, and he granted their urgent plea because they trusted in him."

The Lord saves not by many, nor by few; it is ours to go in Jehovah's name even if we are only a handful of men, for the Lord of Hosts is with us as our Captain. They did not neglect their weapons, but neither did they place their trust in them; we must use all fitting means, but our confidence must rest in the Lord alone, for He is the sword and the shield of His people. The great reason for their extraordinary success lay in the fact that "the war was of God."

Beloved, in fighting with sin in us and around us, with error doctrinal or practical, with spiritual wickedness in high places or low places, with devils and the devil's allies, you are waging Jehovah's war, and unless He himself can be defeated, you do not need to fear defeat. Do not tremble before superior numbers; do not shrink from difficulties or impossibilities; do not flinch at wounds or death; strike with the two-edged sword of the Spirit, and the dead shall lie in heaps.

The battle is the Lord's, and He will deliver His enemies into our hands. With steadfast foot, strong hand, dauntless heart, and flaming zeal, rush to the conflict, and the hosts of evil will fly like chaff before the gale.

Stand up! stand up for Jesus! 
The strife will not be long;
This day the noise of battle,
The next the victor's song:
To him that overcometh,
A crown of life shall be;
He with the King of glory
Shall reign eternally.

Promptness

Psalm 145:1 “The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season.”

 FROM THE FATHER'S HEARTMy child, I created time. Do I not have the right to decide what is the "proper" time for all things? I have never been late. What you perceive as tardiness or indifference, I call a purposeful delay — only because I have ordained perfect timing which you know nothing about. Whenever you call, I always answer. My line is never busy. When you seek Me, you will always find Me. Promptness is something I delight in showing to My children.

A GRATEFUL RESPONSEIn my impatience, Lord, I often cry, "Hurry up!" You are never in a hurry, yet You are always on time. Though I'm sometimes tardy, You've never missed an appointment. For Your patience with my grumbling, and for Your promptness in my stumbling, I give You thanks, Lord.

SIMPLE TRUTH

God has never failed to keep an appointment.

Encouraging Leader

God has chosen you to lead the way as an Encouraging Leader.

Romans 8:28 “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”

2 Timothy 1:7 “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”   

Trusted Follower

God wants you to be a Trusted Follower of His.

Luke 22:35 “And He said to them, “When I sent you without money bag, knapsack, and sandals, did you lack anything?”  So they said, “Nothing.”

James 1:5-6 “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.”