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I had the privilege a couple of weeks ago of visiting with a missionary to Japan. He had spent a long time of preparation to get him to the place where he now is. He is now ready to plant a church. One of the obstacles to planting a church in Japan was that he had to learn Japanese, which is a very complicated language that is very different from English. He spent 50 hours a week in language school for a year! One thing he realized was that learning Japanese was like learning English. It just took time. He just had to keep at it.
And so many good things in life are like that. To really enjoy it and get better at it, it just takes time. There are two problems with this. First, we can’t do everything. We can’t enjoy everything or be good at everything. We have to focus. We can’t wait too long to choose, either, because time is short. The second is that many things keep us from keeping at it. Some are inside us. Others are outside of us.
One of the most important things that we can do with our lives is joyful fellowship with God and man. There is really no more important pursuit than this. Without it, everything else loses its value. This is the heart of life, to know and fellowship with God and the people He has made. However, in order to enjoy this fellowship, there is one simple thing we absolutely must do: keep at it. This is hard because there are things things that throw us off our game and keep us from keeping at it. Some of those are inside us. Some of those are outside us. Fortunately, we are not left without resources. We have some amazing resources to enable us to keep at it. So, those will be the four ways we will look at this theme of keeping at it: the command, the internal and external challenges, and the resources.
The Command to Keep at It
The key to this section is the command that God gives us to keep at it, to continue in what we have received. John writes, “And now, dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming” (1 John 2:28). Keeping at it means keeping in Him. This means that we continue in fellowship with Him. John tells us to continue in Him so that we will be ready when He comes again. Now, whether we are alive when He comes again or whether we die and go to meet Him, the goal is that we continue with Him in such a way that we are living in fellowship with Him on earth and are ready to simply transition to fellowship with Him in heaven.