It’s not difficult to find discouragements and even be ready to give up. Everything just seems to make us worn down. But Scripture directs us to the grace and power of God rather than ourselves and the situation around us. There is a time for sowing and a time for reaping and we are not to wish away the one for the other. The darker and the more uncertain the times appear to be the greater the urgency to seize every opportunity to do all the good we can. Opportunities are not always what we expect them to be, indeed they may seem costly and risky at face value. They may be found in the most unlikely of places and times. Wisdom, as well as courageous faith, will seek them out for the glory of God and the good of others.

Paul encourages the weary Galatian Christians to persevere in not only doing the good in which they were already engaged but also in seeking out opportunities for doing as much good as they could. There is a real danger of becoming “weary in well-doing” (Galatians 6:9). As James Fergusson points out, this does not just mean what they were doing but how they were doing it. Despite all discouragements to the contrary, he assures them that God’s appointed opportune time of reaping will come. Paul goes on in the next verse to exhort them to seek out opportunities to do good to as many as they could. Time is short and opportunities are not always forthcoming. The focus is on all kinds of good but especially providing for others who are in need. We should be careful of spiritualising away our duty to the practical needs of others but no doubt it applies to spiritual needs as well. Fergusson explains it further in this updated extract.

1. We Must Not be Discouraged in Taking Opportunities to Do Good

All by nature are exceedingly backward from entering the course of well-doing (and especially doing good towards those whom God commands Mark 10:21-23). So, considering the many discouragements which arise concerning doing good to others there is no small propensity in all to halt in that course of action and to give it up immediately, or soon after they have begun in it. These discouragements may arise from our own corruption or the unworthiness, ingratitude and multitude of those to whom we might do good or from the cold-heartedness and bad example of others who are equally if not more able. Paul seeks to guard against this in saying not to grow weary in well-doing.

2. We Must Continue Taking Opportunities to Do Good

It is not enough that people subject themselves to the authority of God speaking in His Word by merely once entering the way of obedience and enduring in it for a time (Mark 4:17). Perhaps they only last until they attain a name for piety (Revelation 3:1) or meet with some unexpected discouragement or trial (Mark 4:17). They must, however, persist in what they have begun so long as they have any being (Psalm 104:33) and not be weary in well-doing.

3. We Will be Blessed in Taking Opportunities to Do Good

Christians may look to the promised reward as a motive to obedience and perseverance since the Holy Spirit encourages them that in due time they will reap. God has promised a rich reward from free grace in response to His people’s sincere and willing obedience. But He has kept to Himself the date and time for actually bestowing that reward. Yet, even though it is delayed for a long time believers do not have grounds to accuse Him of breach of promise. It is true, however, that sometimes even His dearest saints under strong temptations have gone very near to doing this (Psalm 77:8). He says that they will reap, but when? Not immediately, but in the due and proper time (as that is determined by God).

God does not limit himself to a specified time when He will make His people enjoy the longed-for fruits and comfort of their laborious, costly and long persisted in obedience. Yet His chosen time for this (whether in this life or immediately after death) is always the due and proper time. It is clearly the right and most fitting time beyond all other times for bestowing His mercy after all circumstances have been well considered. It is said you will reap in due, or proper time. The word translated time literally means an opportune time, the very point of time which determines the fittest opportunity for doing any action. Adding the word “due” shows this meaning is intended as if he had said the most opportune time.

4. We Have Good Motives for Taking Opportunities to Do Good

We have just grounds to confidently expect the good thing offered and contained in a conditional promise. But this means that we put into practice the condition that the promise requires. Thus, the apostle exhorts them not to become weary because the promise of a reward includes not wearying as a condition. You will reap if you do not faint, fainting does not mean every slackening in our activity for this can sometimes happen to even the finest saints of God (Psalm 73:2-14). It is the kind of fainting that makes the person totally and finally abandon the ways of God, which will not happen to the real child of God (Matthew 24:24).

5. We Easily Excuse Ourselves from Taking Opportunities to Do Good

Ministers should urge others to engage in the duty of doing good in a way that does not exclude themselves since they should be examples to the Lord’s people in this as in every duty (1 Timothy 4:12). Since people are more averse to such demanding duties than any other, they more readily snatch at everything which may excuse their neglect. No excuse is more plausible to them than that even their ministers neglect all duties of that kind. The apostle, therefore, both in the former verse and in this, includes himself in the exhortation; let us not weary, and let us do good.

6. We Will Not Always Be Able to Take Opportunities to Do Good

There are some fit opportunities offered to us by the providence of God for doing our duty in any way, especially doing good to others. Such opportunities include times when we meet deprived people whose need calls for our help (Isaiah 58:7) and when we have the ability to do them good (2 Corinthians 8:14). Because those opportunities are in passing and being past will not possibly return; we are to look on them as a pressing call from the Lord to set about the duty. We ought to respond to that call without delay. This opportunity relates in part to some portions of our time in this life in which we have a better opening for the duties of doing good than at other times. This has the force of an argument to urge the duty, as it supposes it will not always last.

All opportunities of this kind are confined within the narrow precincts of this present life so that there is no possibility of doing good or being beneficial to others after this life in the way in which we can do it now. The time of repentance, of making sure our election by well-doing, of making our peace with God, is then past. Where the tree falls, there it lies (Ecclesiastes 11:3). Because the time of this life is uncertain (James 4:14) we ought, therefore, to stir ourselves in making use of the present, since we do not know how soon our time may end and all opportunities of doing good come to an end with it. This is implied in the apostle’s words, opportunity may refer to the whole time of this life i.e. while we have the opportunity, let us do good.

8. We Must Take Opportunities to Do Good to Everyone

This duty of doing good is to be extended to all, even our very enemies as their necessity may require (Exodus 23:4-5) and our own ability may enable (2 Corinthians 8:12). This is because of God’s own example, Mat. 5. 45. and the bond of a common nature between them and us (Isaiah 58:7).

9. We Must Take Opportunities to Do Good for the Church

The Church is God’s family and household, He Himself is the head and master (Ephesians 3:15). His ministers are stewards to distribute the bread of life (1 Corinthians 4:1) and individual Christians are members of this family bound together by the profession of one common faith in Christ Jesus. The Church is only a small number-a family-even a handful in comparison of the world (Luke 12:32). As Christ’s family, they are cared for and provided for by Him (1 Timothy 5:8). The members of this family are, therefore, in a special manner obliged to love one another and evidence their love by being beneficial to one another in their needs and difficulties. God often permits even those of His own family to experience these trials for their own good (1 Peter 1:6). Besides other reasons, they are closely related to one another like children belonging to one family, the Lord’s.

10. We Must Take Opportunities to Do Good in Due Order

We must observe an order in doing good to others:

• first it is to be exercised to those of our own family (1 Timothy 5:8);
• secondly, to our parents (1 Timothy 5:4);
• thirdly, to our wider family (1 Timothy 5:8);
• fourthly, those who profess the same faith with us (among those to whom we are not related) and among them those who evidence most the reality of their faith by the fruits of a good life (1 Timothy 5:9-10);
• lastly, to all without exception when an occasion offers itself.

The apostle is only explicit here about the last two. But this gives us grounds for searching out the rest from other parts of the Scriptures. He says to do good to all, but especially to those of the household of faith. The comparison between them is among those to whom we are not related.

Conclusion

It is easy to be discouraged from our duty and to pretend our opportunities to do good are not actually opportunities. Much wisdom and grace are required to discern our duty. Some people are, for instance, inclined to see the arrival of immigrants or refugees with a different religion as purely a threat and not an opportunity. We need to ask ourselves more what we can do for others materially and spiritually. Perhaps the opportunity to show kindness will provide an opportunity to do spiritual good.

Our tendency towards a bleak reading of the times and potential opportunities may not always be as accurate as we think. For instance, the recent Sevanta ComRes Survey suggested that a third of UK adults pray and attend church regularly. In particular, more than half of 18-34-year-olds were spiritually engaged in terms of praying and attending church compared to only a fifth of those over 55. Many caveats need to be put around this, but it does not seem to reflect a society where secularisation is inflicting creeping death. We have the motive, opportunity and means to do good when many others are using them to do harm.

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