“And be ye not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promise” -Hebrew 6:2 (KJV)
God demands that we be fervent in spirit and passionate in the kingdom business and in all our life’s endeavour. He expects that whatever our hand finds to do, that we do it with all our might. To be slothful is to lack zeal and passion, to lack the drive needed to carry out our work. It shows a kind of complacency and lukewarm attitude to work.
Diligence and fervency are essential for all our endeavours because time matters to God. We are admonished to redeem the time. Slothfulness is a poor attitude to work that shows un-seriousness in one’s pursuit. God expects that we do our work and render every service with all our mind, with all our might and with all our heart. Half-hearted service does not attract God’s blessings. We are admonished to love the Lord with all our heart, with all our soul and with all our mind (Matthew 22:37).
Slothfulness weakens faith and patience; we should be strong in faith and patient in hope in order to inherit the promise. God is not slothful concerning his promise so we should not be slothful in holding unto the promises. We need to hold tenaciously to God’s promises and to our faith in Him and his word. Examples abound of people in the bible who inherited the promise through faith and patience. People like Abraham and Sarah, who had to wait for several years for Isaac. The promise came through only when Abraham was a hundred years old and Sarah ninety years. It looked like the promise would never come through. Even when everything points that God’s promise wouldn’t come through, they still waited, hoping in hopeless situation. God’s promises are yea and amen. Joshua and Caleb through faith and patience inherited Canaan, the Promised Land; others who left Egypt with them gave up hope and died in the wilderness because they lacked the faith and patience to inherit the promise.
Jesus, for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the pains and the shame. He inherited the promise at last. We too can inherit the promise through faith and patience.
PRAYER: Lord, help me to hold on to the hope I have in you.
Rev. Vincent Diolu