Raised to Stay: Persevering in Ministry When You Have a Million Reasons to Walk AwaySample

Hold Out For Life

Our enemy has one ministry: to destroy God’s children. He wants us to quit because he knows what happens when Kingdom assignments are fulfilled: crosses are carried, and graves are emptied.

Since the garden, the enemy has been trying to make us question what we know God has spoken over us. From his infamous question to Eve, “did God really say that?” to tempting Jesus in the desert, his goal has always been to place doubt toward our Father in our hearts.

He didn’t want Adam and Eve fulfilling their God-given mandate in the garden to fill the earth with people and command with purpose. He wanted Jesus taken down too, but what he didn’t count on was a plot twist where the cross would become his own demise.

Yet for now the devil is operating in the same way as always. He is “the father of lies” (John 8:44). He’s a thief who comes only to steal and kill and destroy (John 10:10). He’s a prowling lion, looking for someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8).

His goal and tactics, though basic and unoriginal, still seem to catch us by surprise. It’s as if we think the work we’re doing couldn’t possibly be enough to make us a target. After all, we’re not populating the earth or saving mankind.

We have to remember: his entire goal is to get us to question God and quit our assignment. When he lost the keys to the Kingdom, we became his greatest threat as he saw for himself what happens when God finishes what he starts through his people. The result is always resurrection.

Reconciliation.

Restoration.

Eternal life.

Every. Single. Time.

I know there are good reasons why you’ve considered quitting, but hear these words: when we stay, we find the Jesus we have always wanted to know and a family worth fighting for with every fiber of our being.

This plan is presented to you by Raised to Stay, by Natalie Runion. To learn more about this book, please click here.