Today I am very pleased to introduce Mr. Denver Harris.  Denver is a senior at Excel Christian Academy in Cartersville, Georgia.  Denver has been called to preach and it is evident if you spend any time with him at all that the good fruit of righteousness is already being produced in his life.

I approached Denver a while back and asked him if he would consider writing a guest post for Matthew515 and he graciously agreed.  I am honored to be able to host this message and give Denver a chance to say what is on his heart.

First of I would like to thank Matt for giving me this opportunity to be a guest writer on his site. My name is Denver Harris, and I have known Matt for several years now and am blessed to be able to call him my friend.

Do you feel like you are ready to give up?

Most people have a set routine for their daily lives. We wake up, go to work, and go home to rest. Somewhere in this process we begin to feel tired. We slack at work, become irritable, and all we have on our minds is sleep and rest. Being a high school student I know all too well about feeling tired, and I also understand the urge to want to give up or quit when things do not go as planned. We all at some point in time have been tired; we are human and that is the way our body tells us to rest.

However, we as Christians must not grow weary; the harvest is plenty but the workers are few (Matt. 9:37).  There is a lost and dying world out there, and we want to complain about being tired?  We must run the race with endurance (Hebrews 12:1).  Isaiah 40:31 says “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.”  There are many more verses like these encouraging Christians to not give up and not be a quitter no matter how tired you may be.  The Lord will renew your strength and your desire to want to do His business and grow His kingdom.

Allow me to ask you a very serious question. What if Jesus would have stopped half way up Golgotha’s hill? What if during his suffering and agony He stopped and called the angel army to come and deliver Him?  The world is in bad shape as it is, but could you imagine a world without our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!  Friends, Jesus went all the way to Cavalry for everyone, for all kinds.

Max Lucado put it this way and I love this quote it says ” If you knew that only a few would care that you came, would you still come? If you knew that those you loved would laugh in your face, would you still care? If you knew that the tongues you made would mock you, the mouths you made would spit at you, the hands you made would crucify you, would you still make them? Christ did.”  That is love beyond compare.  Knowing He was going to die didn’t stop this beautiful creation, and He made the ultimate sacrifice on the cross for all mankind.  So let me ask you the question again: are you tired?

You shouldn’t be.  Spiritually you should be on fire and ready to do the good work that God has laid out for you.  This world will try and bring you down and try to make you weary.  Winston Churchill, during Britain’s darkest hours of WWII, said we shall never surrender.

Another famous speech along the same lines was given by Jimmy Valvano (famous college basketball coach who was dying from cancer at the time) and he had this to say about giving up:

So next time you feel spiritually tired and feel like giving up remember what Christ did for you. Do not surrender to this world, and do not give up. Don’t ever give up!

God Bless You and thank you for reading.