Sunday for conviction; On track or on slide

It's been a long time I wrote somethinf different, it's basically been all about my progress, journey, business, stress and yada yada.. I decided it's gonna be different today plus it's a Sunday so let's do a little bit of a churchy thing....let's get right into it..

What do you stand for?

Sandra is sad: in fact today Mark's the saddest day of her life. By secular standards, she has all things going on well for her; she works as a marketer in one of the leading financial houses in the country, earns a humongous salary, rides a good car and can afford a really luxurious apartment, yet she's in deep anguish. "How are the mighty fallen" she thought to herself as she reflected on the past two years of her life.

Sandra had graduated from the university in flying colours; while in school she was a good and steadfast Christian, beauty and brains was her nicknames, and many came to know the lord on account of her life. On graduating; due to the economic situation in the country, it was difficult to get a job. She discovered that getting a job was tougher than initially expected; "sometimes brains and hard work is nothing in the real world" she thought to her self.

Eventually she got lucky someehere along the way and got her present job; on completion of the new intake training, she was posted to the meeting department. She was well informed as to what her job entailed; she has to source for deposits for the organisation and to this end she was given a target. Meeting up with the target was a herculean task she consistently failed to meet up with. This led her into making some minor adjustments in her lifestyle; she had to be more open-minded and outgoing to more contacts. Her dressing which was already nice and modest needed some more smothering too if she intends to make progress. In all these, she had begin to have less time for personal prayer and fellowship meetings but she kept the faith, or so she thought.

She made further changes to her lifestyle and appearance as the days went by; she was beginning to make progress and needed to maintain this good thing she finally had... plus she had backing of many "sisters" who counselled her that christianity was in the heart and no matter what she did, what really mattered was her personal relationship with God. It didn't take long before this so-called relationship with God was extinguished, and Sandra knew it because her fervency was gone. Communing with God had become even more tedious, and on few occasions she tried but the heavens seemed closed up against her. Surprisingly although she worried about her spiritual life, there was nothing she could do about it as her schedule was too crowded with work; the tide was sweeping her farther seay from her saviour.

Earlier in the day, she had Bumped into Tina; a sister with whom she served in the university house fellowship committee. Tina was also doing fine, she had maintained compartment and relationship with God but not without a cost; she shared with Sandra how she had turned down many job opportunities which conflicted with her faith, and that in her present workplace, rather than yield to temptations and pressures, she maintains her stand and deonds greatly on God's help for her various achievements. Her progress at work is real and commendable because it was obtained in steadfastness with God and hardwork. Sandra couldn't hide her shame and regret; "why didn't I do the same?" she lamented "why was it so easy for me to let go of all I had lived for, was my conviction that shallow?"

Make up your mind

Someone once said "if you do not stand for anything, you will fall for everything". Quite a number of Christians do not contend for the faith which they profess especially in times of temptation, trials and prosecution; they are easily tossed about by every word of doctrine; everything in vogue is acceptable to them, as a matter of fact they attach their relevance, identity and self confidence to being comfortable with the "in-thing". They must conform to whatever is in vogue, try to please everyone in order to get what they want and do on..

The work place knows no difference between saints and sinners, campuses are filled with believers who are ready to do anything in order to get out of difficult situations, and the line between the godly and ungodly keeps getting thinner as days pass, all in a bid to survive and make ends meet.

In all of these, the question is; where do you really stand and what do you stand for? What kind of a Christian are you? How do you handle pressure and ungodly counsel? Do you stand with christ irrespective of the situation or do you follow suit with whatever is thought your way as situation demands?

The "keyword" here is conviction; make up your mind, the choice is yours.

Happy Sunday...

Toddles!

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