A great door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many who oppose me. 1 Corinthians 16:9
Great opportunity and much opposition go together. What do we do when facing opposition?
Jude found himself writing to encourage saints in difficult circumstances (Jude 1:3) and this is what he told them: “But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life” (Jude 1:20-21). There are four things Jude tells them to do—build, pray, keep and wait.
First, we continually build our faith by doing those things which will make us spiritually stronger—reading, studying the Bible and other Christian writings plus fellowshipping with other Christians.
Second, we pray. We sometimes get weary in praying because we don’t see the results as quickly as we would like. John tells us that as we pray we make incense (Revelation 5:8). One day God will add fire to the incense and send our prayers back to earth to achieve his purposes (Revelation 8: 5).
Third, we keep ourselves in God’s love. During times of trials, it’s imperative that we know that God loves us, that he cares about us and that he has our best interests at heart. God’s love is our security against doubt, depression and fear.
And fourth we wait. The Israelites were successful in battles when they waited for God to show them the battle plan. Likewise, when facing spiritual opposition we can only be victorious if we wait for God to show us what to do and when to do it.
Remember when facing opposition build, pray, keep and wait.
