Moving Forward or Backwards

In 2 Timothy 4:10, Paul writes, “For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica.” Demas used to travel with Paul. How would you travel with Paul and see the miracles and hear that man preach and then forsake him?

The Bible clearly says, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15).

There is no holding pattern with God. You may start the race, but you still have to finish too. That’s not legalism; that’s just scripture. If we’re not growing, then we’re going backwards. We’re either growing, getting closer to God and learning more; or we’re sliding backwards, and our instincts will totally change.

You can see that in the history of different denominations. They started out on fire, and they didn’t have 10 dollars to rub together. Now they’ve got millions and property, and they’re a shell. They’re slick, but they’re empty. You know it, and I know it, and everybody knows it. They talk about the ‘good old days,’ but why? Because they know it isn’t that way anymore.

So we learn that we all have to keep growing. We have to keep being challenged. We need to be around other believers who will push us.

The Bible says, “Rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he [Jesus] departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed” (Mark 1:35). What’s Jesus praying for? He’s the Son of the living God! He’s the Word, the promises incarnate, and he’s still praying. But we ‘don’t have time’ to lay ahold of God’s promises?

Jesus told his followers, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened” (Matthew 7:7-8).

If there’s no asking, there’s no receiving. If there’s no prayer, you’re going to go sideways quickly. We move forward toward God or away.   

^{Jim Cymbala began the Brooklyn Tabernacle with less than twenty members in a small, rundown building in a difficult part of the city. A native of Brooklyn, he is a longtime friend of both David and Gary Wilkerson.}