This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Welcome to Daily Drive Time Devotions, we're in Galatians chapter 6 this week,
day 3. We're going to focus on verses 9 and 10 today. We're talking about
walking in the Spirit.

What does that mean? It means we've just gone through the list, it means you
help others when they sin, when they get caught up in sin. It means you carry
the responsibility that God has given to you.

It means you encourage others who teach you God's truth. It means that you and I
aren't fooled by spiritual shortcuts. That's what it means to walk in the
Spirit.

What does it mean to walk in the Spirit? It also means that you don't give up.
Listen to Galatians 6, 9 and 10.

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a
harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good
to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers. Don't
give up.

You can't walk in the Spirit while sitting in discouraged defeat on the
sidelines. If you're sitting down, it doesn't matter how fast your feet are
moving, you're not going to get anywhere. If you're sitting down, you move your
feet, you're just shuffling your feet, you're not walking in the Spirit.

So how do you keep going? How do you keep moving ahead in a world where
discouragement hits you, where life does not turn out as you expected that it
would? How do you not give up?

How do you not become weary in doing good? Paul here is not talking so much
about physical tiredness as spiritual weariness. The feeling that with all that
you're doing, you're just not making progress, not with how far you have to go.

You look at yourself and you think you haven't grown as much as you'd like to
have grown, and there's spiritual weariness to that. You look at your ministry,
your service to others, and you think that ministry hasn't expanded as you would
have desired to expand it. It's not selfishness that's motivating that.

You really want to serve others, and there's spiritual weariness that goes with
that. How do you keep yourself from weariness? Paul talks in these verses about
two crucial things.

Number one, you get off your timetable and you get on God's timetable. And
number two, you stop looking at the disappointments of the past, and you start
looking at the opportunity of the day. Listen to what he says about these two.

First, you get off your timetable, you get on God's timetable. Let us not become
weary in doing good, for at the proper time, we will reap a harvest. In due
time, we will reap a harvest.

In due time, the proper time, guess what? That's not your time. That's not my
time.

That's God's time. Remember the law of sowing and reaping. You cannot violate
it.

You're going to reap what you sow. But as we talked about at the end of
yesterday, it's going to happen in God's time. So the scripture says, if we
don't get weary, if we don't give up, this is going to happen.

The biggest temptation I have often seen to give up comes right before the
harvest. There's something about the way that life works, that right before
God's about to do something great, that is Satan's greatest time of temptation
in your life. It's often when, obviously, you've had to wait the longest for
this thing to happen that you've been praying for or working for.

And because of all of that, working together, it's the very moment at which you
want to give up. So I don't know how many people have given up right at the
moment when God's about to bring a victory. They've walked away from the good
thing that God wants to do.

Now God's going to do good things, whether I'm there or not. He's going to do
good things, whether you're there or not. This is not a matter of, is God going
to do good things in this world?

It's a matter of, am I going to be in on the good things that God is doing? Am I
going to be participating in, contributing to the good things that God is doing?
And if a farmer gets discouraged right before the wheat crop comes in and walks
away and is gone for two months, when that farmer comes back, the crops are
gone.

They're ruined. There is a moment. There is a due time.

There is a timing of God. So don't become weary in doing good. And remember that
oftentimes your point of greatest weariness, tiredness spiritually, is the point
where the great victory that God has, the great thing that God wants to do is
right around the corner.

Don't give up. How do I do that? Get off your timetable.

Get on God's timetable. Trust in His timetable and realize that even though it
may feel longer than I wanted it to be, God knows what He's doing. He knows the
right time for the crop to be born so it's the right crop that can make the most
benefit, cause the most benefit and make the most difference in this world.

Get on God's timetable. And if you're like me, that's like an hourly thing
sometimes. Just reminding myself, be patient.

It's God's timing. It's not my timing. Do that today.

Get on God's timetable. Then the second thing you do is you stop looking at the
disappointments of the past and you start looking at the opportunity of the day.
That's verse 10.

"Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people. " How many of
us, because we've gotten discouraged, because we've become weary in doing good,
you start to go through this sort of bitterness in your mind and you pull in,
you withdraw into yourself and because of that, you miss the opportunity that's
right in front of you. The opportunity for joy in somebody else's life as you
serve them, but also the opportunity for joy in your life.

So instead of breaking out of the weariness, you go deeper and deeper and deeper
into it. You're looking, you're focusing at the disappointments of the past. And
God has given opportunity for that day.

We all have opportunity to do good to one another. We all have opportunity to
share God's goodness with other people. But many times, it is a brief
opportunity at best.

So take advantage of it while you have time. First, you only have a certain
amount of time in this world, so why waste days on looking backwards? And
second, you only have a certain amount of time to do that thing that God has
given you to do.

The door is only open for a certain amount of time to encourage that person that
needs to be encouraged. They're only going to be in your life for so long. The
door is only open for a certain amount of time to serve those people that need
to be served.

They may move on to be somewhere else, but right now they need to be served by
you. I want you to notice, as Paul talks about taking the opportunity to serve,
he focuses on the people that are closest to us. He especially says, serve those
who belong to the family, especially those who belong to the family of
believers.

I loved what someone on the research team asked about this. And they asked, why
is it so much easier to be kind and respectful to strangers than to family
members? Boy, that's true.

I think we all realize that. That is so true. The people that are closest to us,
sometimes we relax a little bit, we get irritated by them that we're around them
a lot, so we let down our guard.

So instead of loving those people, we tend to ignore those people. Sometimes
your family gets too close and you're irritated by them, and so it's hard to
love. Sometimes your family gets too close and you don't notice them, and so
it's hard to love.

And as Paul talks about taking the opportunity, he wants us to take all
opportunities, love the people that are the furthest away from you, love the
people you've never met, love the people who you need to reach out to that no
one in this world is meeting their need. But as Paul talks about this, he says,
do not miss the opportunity to love the people that are closest to you. Do not
miss the opportunity to love the people that the needs are the most obvious to
you.

Do not miss the opportunity to meet the need of the person that's right there in
your own home, right there in your own church, right there in your own family,
because as you and I love in that kind of way, we are taking the opportunity of
the day, and God's going to build on that opportunity in your life. And as he
builds on that, he'll encourage the other person, but he'll also encourage you.
As we take a few minutes today to talk together to the Lord, let's pray about
the opportunity of the day, and let's pray that he will release us from the
weariness that might be in some of your lives.

If you feel spiritually weary right now, if you feel like giving up, just say,
God, I need your strength. I feel like giving up. I don't know how to not give
up, because I feel it so strongly, but I do trust you.

And so I ask that you help me to do these things that you've said to do. First,
help me to trust in your timing. Lord, you know that I wanted it to happen
sooner.

You know that it's hard for me to be patient. Help me to trust that there is a
proper time, there is a right time, that you are at work even when I can't see
it. And even though I don't understand why it's taking so long, I do trust that
you're at work, that a harvest will come.

And then, Lord, I also pray that you help me to see the opportunities of today.
Not look to tomorrow and some dream of the future, not look to yesterday and
some disappointment of the past. Help me to see the opportunities to serve you
today.

What I can do for you right now. And as I do that, Lord, help me to do it out of
my faith in you, my trust in you, knowing that you've given it to me to do
because I love you and I love the people that I'm serving. Lord, I want to take
a moment to pray as we end for those who feel like giving up right now.

And I pray, Jesus, that you give new strength and new heart, that through your
Spirit, as they follow you, as they walk in the direction of your Spirit, you
would give them even today the hope that they do not have to give up, even
though they feel weary inside. That, God, you can give them strength for the day
and then you can give them strength for the next day. And by that, God, you can
build in us a life of opportunity that we never would have dreamed.

We often feel like giving up, but we don't have to give up because your Spirit
will give us that strength. Help us to see that today, maybe like never before.
We pray this, Jesus, in your name, Amen.