Press the arrow to listen to Natalie Grant sing In Better Hands while reading today’s devotion.

Scripture
That is why we never give up. 2 Corinthians 4:16

Observation
In factories there are machines designed to wear products out. It is all part of quality control to discover how many times a car door can be slammed or a couch jumped on by little children.

Accelerated wear and tear is not isolated to manufacturers, for God too uses a similar process with his display models called leaders. Public ministry accelerates the grind on a pastor’s life. It is not just the people pressure or work load, there is the unseen demonic abrasion and assault. I have a friend who served in a marketplace role where he oversaw literally thousands of people, who has now moved into a senior pastor role. He said to me, “I had no idea of the expectations and exhaustion of ministry.”

Paul called himself a “fragile clay pot”. Ministry revealed to him how weak he really was. Yet he concluded his thought bracket in triumph with the resolve never to give up. How so? Because the pressure on the inside is equal to the pressure on the outside. That internal pressure is the weight of glory that every godly person carries inside of their being.

Application
A tire can handle road pressure when properly inflated. So too as a leader I need not only to keep the presence of Christ fresh in my life, but I need to live with a continual self-reminder of what is within me. I can only feel pressure without because there is power within. If there were no power within there would be no sense of external pressure. Therefore I must never give up.

Prayer
Father, today, I ask not to just to be equal to my tasks but to be in awe of what you have placed in me to make that so. Amen.