Most of us live like we used to watch TV — the program was not too good, but were are too lazy to get up and change the channel. Now we may be too lazy to get up and find the remote. Knowing what you need to do is not enough, we must be doers (James 1:22).

Here are six steps that can help us get out of our rut and into action:

Stop talking and decide to do it! “All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty” (Proverbs 14:23) Stop talking about losing weight, exercising more, or going to Bible study and worship every Sunday, etc. — just do it.

Set a deadline. Someone said, “A diet is what you put off while you are putting on.” Resolve, “I will lose 10 pounds in 30 days.” I will read through the New Testament by September 15. Deadlines have a way of getting us moving.

Learn to master your moods. “A man who rules his spirit is better than a man who takes a city” (Proverbs 16:32). Often we don’t distinguish between “I can’t” and “I don’t want to.” If we only pray or study the Bible when we feel like it, rest assured Satan will make certain that we will not feel like it.

Burn your bridges behind you. Do not leave another way open. Leave your only option open as the one to move ahead.

Take the first step. This is the hardest. NASA says the rockets we launch into outer space require the majority of the fuel to get the rocket the first 30 feet off the ground. That’s the hardest part for all of us too.

Be optimistic. Remind yourself of the benefits of completion. Keep thinking of what you’ll receive, win, or have when you’re through?

— Adapted —

On December 1, 1955 Rosa Parks, a black passenger on a crowded city bus was told to give her seat to a white person. She refused, was arrested, jailed, and fined $14. Her case did not end at that courthouse, but it started a movement that ended legal segregation across the south.

Rosa Parks used persistence
to get justice.

If she is like a character in the Bible, it might be the widow in this parable: “There was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man: And there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary. And he would not for a while : but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man; Yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me” (Luke 18:2-5).

The widow used her lone asset,
persistence, to get justice.

The meaning of the parable is in the judge’s soliloquy. Jesus is not saying that God is like the judge, but that we should be like the widow. Even a scoundrel is open to the influence of persistent appeal. So during prayer, we shouldn’t quit if God’s answer is delayed. Instead, we should use repetition as leverage to gain a favorable outcome to fretful circumstance. Regarding a disciple’s plea to God for justice, Jesus promised, “he will avenge them speedily” (Luke 18:8).

But there is more. Jesus finished the application with a question: “When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?”

When Jesus wonders about the stamina of our prayers, He also wonders about the stamina of our faith. He implied an intimate relationship between the two. We live like we pray and we pray like we live.

Like any worthwhile endeavor, Christian discipleship is easy to begin but hard to sustain. It is one thing to become a Christian, quite another to stay a Christian. Our memories are filled with faces of people who once came to church, but quit, and now don’t worship God anywhere.

Who wants just a short burst of brilliance? The task of Christianity is not to start but to finish. Proving that our faith is right includes proving that our faith can last. When Jesus returns, will He find faith in you? — Copied

“Yesterday is history,
tomorrow is a mystery,
and today is a gift;
That’s why they call it the present.”

Eleanor Roosevelt

“Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow.
For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that
appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.”

James, New Testament Writer
(James 4:14)

“Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended:
but this one thing I do, forgetting those things
which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the
prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”

The Apostle Paul
(Philippians 3:13-14)