Like this:

You may not know this, but I used to play tennis for my high school. Used to. I wasn’t any good. I was what you would call a bench warmer.

I could hit the ball hard, but getting it into the white lines was always a bit of a struggle for me. Turns out that in tennis, that is a big problem.

Did I care? Not really. After all, all I wanted was P.E. credits. And since tennis was easy (because I was bad), I figured, “Why not?” So I ended up on the team.

I didn’t strive to get better. I was okay with where I was at. I won once (maybe twice) in my short tennis career, and that didn’t bother me at all. As long as I was getting PE credits, I didn’t care about how good I was. I had no intention of stepping it up.

Sadly, many people live their Christian lives with this attitude.

They think, “Hey, heaven sounds pretty cool. Being perfect would be sort of nice. Why not?” They jump on the “Jesus bandwagon” and don’t care about improving their walks with the Lord. They think they will go to heaven when they die, so they are okay with where they are at.

Or maybe they compare themselves with other people, and find that they better off than some people. They think, “Well Joe struggles with this, and I’m doing pretty good in that area. I’m fine!” Or, “Mary only reads her Bible once a day, but I read mine twice a day, good enough for me.”

Do these things characterize the way you think about your relationship with God? Are you okay with just being average, or even being a little “above” average? If you are doing “fine”, is that enough for you?

In 1 Thessalonians 4:1, Paul urges us to think and act differently in relation to our walks with the Lord:

Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more.

We are called to walk in holiness and please God more and more.

We need to STEP.IT.UP.

This isn’t just a command from Paul, either. We are urged “in the Lord Jesus“. It is a command from Christ! We need to show our love for Him by glorifying Him and pleasing Him more and more.

God doesn’t want us to be content with our holiness. He doesn’t want us to reach our goals, and then slack off and relax.

So what are some practical ways in which you and I can step it up? There are so many areas that we can examine, but for the scope of our short study, let’s look at four.

1) Bible reading- The Thessalonians had already received the gospel and the preaching of the apostles. They knew what to do, so Paul encourages them to learn how they can please God more and more.

Unlike the Thessalonians, we have the wisdom and teachings of God in our Bibles. We don’t need to remember what the apostles preached on. We can look inside a book or on the internet to find out what God wants us to do.

We need to step it up in our Bible reading.

Are you content with  just reading the Scripture of the Day? After you drop a comment, are you clocking out? Or is your love and passion for the Word unquenchable?

Yes, one chapter of the Bible a day is above average for high school students. But don’t be content with being above average. Strive for excellence. Read through the Bible in a year. Grab a commentary on a book of the Bible and get into a deep study of the Word.

If your intake of the Word increases, you will find the Lord tremendously blessing your walk with Him.

2) Prayer- How often to you pray? Do you do it when you go to bed? When you wake up? Throughout the day? For how long are you talking to God?

Whatever your answers may be, don’t be content with what you’re at.

If you only pray at night, start praying in the morning too. If you don’t talk to God continuously, try to incorporate that into your daily routine (see the link below for more info on this). If you pray for teen minutes a day, aim to make it twenty.

Do you pray for other people, or are your prayers all about you? Do you lift up your pastors and your youth group in prayer? If not, I encourage you to do so!

God surely will bless the one who spends much time in passionate prayer.

(I posted a blog on prayer a while back, Talking to God, that may also help you dig deeper into the topic of prayer).

3) Encouragement- This is a hard one for me, but it is so important. The Bible often encourages us to encourage others (see for example, Hebrews 3:13 and Hebrews 10:24-25).

How can you step it up in your encouragement? Is it just something that happens on the weekends and at small groups?

Challenge yourself to text or Facebook message/chat someone each day of the week. Send them some short, encouraging words like, “Praying for you” or even them compliment on how you have seen them grow and mature in the Lord.

Though it may not seem like it, these words of encouragement go a long way and take only a small amount of time.

Make a habit of building up a brother or sister in Christ everyday.

4) Evangelism- Of all of the areas, this one is definitely the toughest for me. And in reality, it is the hardest for most Christians.

We care about what people think of us, how our teachers will treat us, or our own reputations. But if we are going to please the Lord and step it up, we are going to need to evangelize “more and more”.

Think about how many people you sit next to in your classes. And how many of them need to hear the gospel?

For me, the answer is a lot of them, if not all of them.

I know that I have many opportunities to get the Word about Christ out to them, and I can definitely step it up in doing so.

What about you? What effort are you making to witness to your peers? How can you step it up?

Don’t get stuck in an “evangelism comfort zone”. Please the Lord more and more by evangelizing more and more.

I hope that this post has made you think about the Lord’s call for us to please Him more and more. It is my prayer that you and I will not be content with being “average” Christians, but that we will strive for spiritual excellence and maturity.

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