Don't Give Up.

I'm republishing a post that I never got down to doing. But looking back. It was really His grace that carried me through such a rough year, and to Him be all the praise and glory =)

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I apologise for the frenzy of fear my last post caused. I'm doing fine. Writing is just an outlet to express my distress. Usually it sounds a whole lot worse than it really is. I will endeavour to make less angsty posts, no one really likes reading too many of them anyway. Heh.

God has graciously carried me through the bumps and stumbles I landed myself in. And although exams are close to 2 weeks away, I'm still doing fine. Albeit my headache never seems to want to go away. OSCE preps and EMQ worries aside, I've found it increasingly difficult to express myself. Its either i'm running away in denial about something, I'm losing my ability to write or the stress is unconsciously eating away at my communicative skills. Maybe all 3.

Despite all that, at least one thing stays constant. God's word and His comfort. Here's an interesting passage I read this past week.

"But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ."
2 Peter 1:5-8

Prior to this passage, Peter starts of his letter by reminding his readers about the gift of life, and power to be godly(holy) which we have in Christ. With this power, and His promises, we are able to turn away from the lusts and evil of this world.

Yeah. power.
What power?

I don't feel particularly powerful when I hit a rutt. When I stumble back into my old ways, my selfishness and rebellion against God, when I refuse to surrender. I don't feel as if I can do what is holy, what is righteous, what pleases God.

I don't because I try to do it on my own.

And I know many who have. And what happens? They give up. A relation of mine once related why he gave up being a Christian in his uni days. "Because it was too hard to do the right thing all the time. I couldn't live up to it. There's no point continuing on, because I'd just be a hypocrite."

Its too hard.

You bet its hard. The greatest temptation we'd EVER face as a Christian, in following Christ, is to give up. And thats when we attempt to do it on our own strength, and forget that God knows that we'd definitely fail. We will give up. Look at what happened to the Israelites' attempt to obey God's law. They could never do it completely.

But Jesus could. He was the only one who could. And therein lies the power.