Rising Up In The Midst Of The Storm

It is very hard to rise up out of tough times, and even harder to build relationships, the church, and yourself while going through these times. The Bible calls us to rise up and build many times, but what does that even mean? How do we rise up and build if we are going through hard times, and need to be built up ourselves? Sometimes we feel like no one is building anything, and so we should just kick back and relax because that's what everyone else is doing. However, if no one is doing the Lord's work in the church and no one is getting built up, then everything is going to fall apart.

The Bible shows many examples of rising up and building. For example, Ezra 1:5 says that everyone whose heart God moved “prepared to go up and build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem.” Jeremiah 24:6 says that God will watch over them (exiles), bring them back to the land, and He will “build them up and not tear them down.” So, there are many ways to rise up and build. Like, building each other up and building the Lord’s church. Now that we know what he means in these verses, how do we do this? How do we rise up in the midst of our own difficulties and build others up?

Building is easier said than done. When we are talking about building up the Lord’s church, we want to invite people to church and make disciples, like it says in Matthew 28:19. This is so hard today because most people have already made up their minds about what religion they are going to follow, if they are going to follow one at all. So, how do we bring them to church? Having a Bible study can bring to light what Jesus says about all kinds of different things. This is very hard to do, and even if they reject what we are saying, God sees what we are doing and He knows that we are trying to build up the church.

How do we rise up out of our own struggles and build the church? It is so much easier to sit and wait for someone to build up the church because we think it’s too hard for us to do while we are going through difficulties. However, everyone is going through something. If everyone is waiting, then nothing is getting done and the church is not getting built up. It’s really hard to rise up and do the work, but we feel so good after it’s done. Think about the reward we have in heaven after we put in the work on earth. It's hard but it needs to be done.

In conclusion, although it is hard to rise up and build, we have to get it done. Both of these things we are called to do will help everyone around us including ourselves. People are going to reject us and tear us down despite us trying to do good, but we have a great reward in heaven waiting for us.