THE ART OF MAINTENANCE IN CHRISTIAN LIFE
When Adam was created, he never paid anything to be in the garden of Eden. However, he lost everything by not following the command he was given regarding the forbidden tree.
When Samson was endowed with his strength as a gift from God, neither him nor his parents worked at acquiring it. He enjoyed His supernatural strength but he lost it for a while when he gave away the secret of his strength to Delilah.
When the children of Israel received the vision about the ‘Land of milk and honey’, they never worked for it. However, they lost their God-given vision by refusing to enter the promised land.
In Israel, when the people obeyed God, they would prosper. When they disobeyed, they would sink into poverty and disaster.
What’s the lesson I am trying to share?
You see my friend, it is possible to become rich by chance with a lotto ticket, through an inheritance, or through an unmerited gift. However, in order to remain rich and to see breakthrough expansion, you will need to invest some ‘work maintenance’.
You can become rich by chance but it is not feasible to remain rich by chance.
When God gives you a blessing (regardless of its form), you will then have the duty of maintaining it.
Adam was in the garden, in an unmerited position, but he failed to maintain his position by disobeying God.
Though we are saved by Grace through Faith (Ephesians 2:8), the Apostle tells us to work on our salvation (Philipians 2:12). In other words, Paul told us to work on our salvation as guiding maintenance. When people see us (as Christians), they should see some evidence of our salvation by the way we live.
This year, there are people who have received businesses, healing, children, jobs, forgiveness and much more… Whatever gifts you have received will need to be maintained.
If a person has received healing from God, what kind of message is he sending if he goes and practices habits that can get him sick again?
God can bless a woman with a baby. However, the woman will have to maintain the baby through breastfeeding and nurturing. Such maintenance will require extreme sacrifice and selflessness from the mother. If the mother refuses to maintain the baby, then the child will surely die out of neglect.
If God grants you a job, you will still need to maintain it by being on time at work, by submitting your work deadlines, and by responding correctly to the professional requirements imposed by your organization.
God can bless any unmarried person with a marriage, but the marriage will have to be maintained by the married couple.
In the parable of the talents, all three servants received talents from their master but only two did ‘maintenance work’. In the Garden of Eden, Adam was supposed to maintain the only commandment he was given: “ do not eat from the tree of knowledge”.
In Deuteronomy 8:1, God said: “Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land the Lord promised on oath to your ancestors.
And In Deuteronomy 8:19-20, God said: “ If you ever forget the Lord your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed. Like the nations the Lord destroyed before you, so you will be destroyed for not obeying the Lord your God.”
Can you see the contrast between the above two passages in Deuteronomy 8? In one passage, when the relationship with God is maintained, the people of Israel would remain in their position. In the other passage, when the relationship with God was not maintained, they would fall and be destroyed.
In John 14:15, Jesus said:”if you love me, keep my commands”. ‘Obeying to God’ is a form of maintenance of our love to God.
When we maintain a blessing from God, we ensure the longevity of the blessing and we also show a form of respect to the Giver of the Blessing.