Prayer alone is not enough (Part 5)
Verse of the day: 2 Thessalonians 3:10 “For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat”
In writing to Corinthians, Paul insisted by telling them that they should not be idle. He said: “ For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example. We were not idle when we were with you” (2 Thessalonians 3:7)
Unfortunately many children of God are idle. By “idle”, Paul meant Christians who preferred to waste their time instead of working (2 Thessalonians 3:11).
So far, you can tell me that Paul was right because everybody is supposed to work. The idleness I’m going to talk today is about Christians who want to prosper by faith without making any effort.
Paul served the Lord full time but he sometimes worked to live. While writing to Thessalonians, he says: “nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you” (2 Thessalonians 3:8). I hope you understood that Paul was not talking about the work (spiritual) of God but he struggled in order to survive. The nature of his job is found in the book of Acts where it’s said that he was a tentmaker (Acts 18:3). The word of God is always against laziness (Prov 6:9-10) and according to the verse of the day, the one who is unwilling to work should not eat.
Let me say something for those who are in God’s work as fulltime ministers: They are called to give their entire time to the work of God and it’s the same God that will take care of their lives if at least He is the one who called them because working for God in fulltime is a special calling and not an adventure to survive.
Today, some Christians make a lot of efforts to finish their studies but once they have their degrees, they get lazy in waiting for a miraculous solution to get a job based on their faith and prayers.
Nevertheless, their prayers need some salt in order to be efficient i.e they must search and read announcements in fighting with their faith in prayer. It’s true that God often creates many opportunities but He creates them with those who move and not those who stagnate.
What is important is not waiting but it’s the attitude we wait with.
We will finish this teaching in the sixth part by talking about reconciliation as salt.
Chris Ndikumana
