How many of us have ever given up on something? Many times we get committed to doing something and then once we are in it, decide that we may have gotten ourselves in over our heads. Many of you can probably relate to this in the area of sports or community service time commitments. But have any of you had this conversation with yourself regarding your faith or Christian beliefs?

This week, as I read through the book of Malachi, I came across a verse that struck me. Malachi is the last book of the Old Testament, and is written by a prophet who is speaking to the Israelites about their sins and disobedience in the first half and then finishes up with both a word of encouragement and a word of warning regarding the coming day of the Lord.

But what I want to look at is verses eleven through thirteen of chapter one which talks about God being very upset with his people since they, being God's chosen people and the ones in which God gave specific instruction as to the worship of him, were not honoring God with their obedience and yet the nations around them were honoring God more than they were. But what really got to me were verses twelve and the beginning of thirteen, which says; "But you dishonor my name with your actions. By bringing contemptible food, you are saying it's all right to defile the Lord's table. You say, 'It's to hard to serve the Lord,' and you turn up your noses at his commands."

This is a very sharp and direct statement. But ask yourselves how many times do we say to ourselves "It's just too hard", "I don't know how to be effective in my Christianity", "You know what, it is only one verse in the Bible, I am sure that God won't mind, besides that is really hard to follow".

So why does it seem to be so hard to follow Christ? Why does it seem that some of the things that he asks of us are so hard to follow? Have you ever been in a situation where a temptation arose and you immediately began to rationalize it in you mind? You begin building a case for all of the reasons why it really is not as bad to follow through with what you want to do. Many times we succeed in our convincing only to discover that we lied to ourselves after the fact. So what is the reason that it seems so hard sometimes?

The answer is that we are self-centered. As the verse says regarding the Israelites, the reason that it was so hard was because they dishonored God with their actions and they turned their noses up at his commands. They chose to do what they wanted to do and not what God wanted. It was hard because they were focused on themselves and what it was going to cost them personally. If we decide to write off the word of God and claim that we know better simply because we feel that God may have gotten it wrong isn't really a very valid excuse.

Final Thought: Take some time this week to think about possible areas in your walk with Christ that you deem to be hard. Spend some time in prayer and ask God to reveal to you areas that you are not letting go of because you feel that they may be better handled by you. Then ask God to give you the strength to make the hard decisions necessary to follow his commands, as well as a peace in knowing that you in his will. Finally thank God for his amazing grace and unfailing love no matter how often we chose to do things our own way, the "real" hard way.