Aug 4

2 John 8 (NIV84)
8 Watch out that you do not lose what you have worked for, but that you may be rewarded fully.

To watch people nearly throw away all of their lives with God for pleasures is depressing to me. Later John writes that his heart is encouraged by people who stay faithful to the truth, and I agree. Many people start their path with God – their walk with God - with vim and vigor. They go hard after God and throw themselves into His life. Inevitably things come up to “call” people back to the way they used to live. It is inviting and attractive to some and they “feel” as though they cannot avoid the lure. They are attracted to it as a fish to something shiny in the water. They bite and then they are ensnared, taken captive and reeled in to a certain death, whether that death is a complete death, a rejection of all of God (or whether that can happen at all), there is a death of the things that God has done. It is as if you have made it to 5th grade and then you lose all your knowledge and skills and when you return, it is back to kindergarten. There is a death though that cannot not be illustrated in this simple metaphor, that drags your soul to the place of ugliness that God had given you victory over.

WATCH OUT or it will happen to you! You will lose the reward that you have already attained! I am not saying you will lose your salvation, but you will lose your victories and deliverances. You will lose your confidence and you will feel horrible about yourself, lost in the guilt that you were once cleansed from. Soon you will recognize that you have returned to the pig pen that you have been saved and cleansed from, and that realization will motivate you to come back or it will depress you and drag you into the mud to a deeper level. DON’T DO IT – IT IS NOT WORTH IT! The pleasure of sin can never be compared to the pleasure of pleasing God and working to advance His Kingdom! I implore you, don’t lose what you have attained – don’t lose your reward! Don’t think that you can play around with worldliness and not become it’s slave – you most certainly will. Your reward is worth your sacrifice! Live like you are wholly His – that is what you were made to do!