Police Devotional
“I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.” (2 Timothy 4:1-5)
Timothy was a young preacher. Paul charged him to keep preaching God’s Word, even if people didn’t want to hear it. Paul knew that if people were to be saved, they had to hear God’s Word. In this passage, Paul’s message to Timothy can be boiled down to two words: don’t quit. Likewise, if you’re saved and you don’t want your heart for Christ to grow cold, then decide in your heart, “By God’s grace, I will not quit!”
As a cop, you’ll face a lot of temptation to quit—not to turn in your badge and gun, but to quit in the sense that you don’t care about doing a good job anymore. You may know officers like that. They show up to work and go through the motions. They answer radio calls and do reports, and even respond as a backup unit sometimes, but their interest in good police work has died. Don’t become like them.
If you strive to be a cop who makes a difference, don’t quit. If your lazy bosses get mad when you create work for them, and they actually have to earn their extra money, don’t quit. When protesters deface property, block intersections, and make life hard for decent people, then whine on TV about you, don’t quit. When the cops are the media’s go-to target for “our top story tonight”, don’t quit. When million-dollar pro athletes bash you with cheap, attention-getting antics, don’t quit. When “ministers” take time to demonstrate against police, and you wonder how much time they spend telling people from the Bible how to receive Jesus as Saviour or how much they preach against sin, don’t quit.
Don’t quit. Decent people need you. The girl being slapped around by her live-in boyfriend needs you. The elderly couple getting their house kicked in need you. The single mom calling on the drug dealer up the street needs you. The all-night gas station clerk who fears being robbed needs you. The neighbors who hear the scrappers tearing apart the next house like vultures need you. These people need and want you. They know that when they call 911, they won’t get pro athletes, suburban college students, or protesters. They’ll get dedicated cops who treat this job like a sacred vocation. So don’t ever quit.
If you’re saved, don’t quit serving the Lord, either. Don’t quit going to church, reading your Bible, praying, or striving to reach people for Christ and live right. People around you need Jesus as Saviour, so they need to see you living a consistent Christian testimony, whether they realize it or not. You have no idea how God is working in their hearts, or how close they could be to inviting your Saviour into their hearts as their Saviour. So please don’t quit. You may fail at times, but as one preacher said, you’re not a failure when you fail; you’re a failure when you quit. If you fail, ask God to forgive you and give you grace and strength to do better, and he will. Whatever you do, though, please don’t quit!
If you want to see how to receive Jesus as your Saviour, please click the “How do I go to Heaven?” link on the sidebar to the right.
Brian Miller 2/19/2015
Cleveland Baptist Church 4431 Tiedeman Road, Brooklyn, Ohio 44144 216/671-2822