Peter did not stop here; he went on. Please read verse 15: "Moreover I will also be diligent that you may be able, after my exodus, to bring these things to mind at all times." Here the word diligent is used once again. Peter charged them diligently to remember these things. Perhaps he had seen too many lazy ones. This is why he had to diligently remind them of these things. Brothers and sisters, we have to learn to serve our God diligently and conscientiously. We should seize every opportunity to serve Him. We should have a disposition and a character that are forever diligent. A good worker is one who is at work not only with his hands and feet, but with his mind and heart as well. If we are not diligent, we will not be of much use to the Lord's work. Those who are good at doctrines may be completely useless to the Lord if they are lazy by nature. All who are afraid of work and responsibility and who have no desire to do anything are not qualified to serve God. They are not fit for His work.

The two Epistles to Timothy and the Epistle to Titus are letters concerning the Lord's work. Second Timothy 4:9 says, "Be diligent to come to me quickly." If a man is diligent, he will come quickly. But if a man is slothful, he will come slowly. Paul said, "Be diligent to come to me quickly." Verse 21 says, "Be diligent to come before winter." Titus 3:12 also speaks of diligence. In these Epistles on work, diligence is very much emphasized.

Jude says the same thing in verse 3: "Beloved, while using all diligence to write to you concerning our common salvation..."

Paul spoke of diligence in other places as well. In pointing out the Corinthians' repentance, he said, "For behold this very thing, your being made sorrowful according to God, what earnestness it has worked out in you" (2 Cor. 7:11). The word earnestness in this verse is the same as diligence in Greek.

Brothers and sisters, if a man wants to learn to serve the Lord, he must be awakened to the weightiness of his responsibility, to the urgency of the need around him, and to the fleeting nature of time! Life is short. If such a consciousness is present within him, he will become diligent and unrelenting. If we do not feel the fleeting nature of our time, the urgency of the need around us, or the weightiness of our responsibility, we will not be able to accomplish much in God's work. If the burden is pressed upon us, we will have no option but to work, even if we have to deprive ourselves of food, sleep, and rest to achieve the goal. This is the only way to make progress in our work. If we consider rest as the most important thing in our life, we will not get too far with our work. Brothers and sisters, our time is almost gone; the need is ever so desperate, and our responsibility is ever so great. Let us, as dying men with fleeting breath and fading opportunity, give ourselves fully to preach the gospel to those who are dying around us. If we drag our feet and fail to see the needs around us, the responsibility that we bear, and the little time that we have, we will not get much of the Lord's work done. Today every servant of God has to serve with a dying urgency. Who can be slothful under such pressure? Brothers and sisters, we must arise and discipline our body in order to be diligent. As Paul said, we have to buffet our body and make it our slave. Just saying that we are eager to serve the Lord is not enough. If we are lazy, we will not be able to tackle any problem before us. Do not think that slothfulness is a small thing. Second Peter 1:8 says that slothfulness is laziness and idleness. We cannot be lazy, and we cannot be idle. We have to buffet our body again and again until we realize that a total, genuine, and daily sacrifice of our life is the only way to work and become useful. We cannot deceive ourselves. Some people say that they will gladly give up their lives for the Lord. Yet they live a lazy life. They try to spare themselves in everything. If they try to bring their character, habits, and disposition into the Lord's work, they will find that they are holding back the Lord's work! If Paul had waited every time for a Macedonian call before he worked, the book of Acts might have recorded only one mission of Paul to Macedonia. The Macedonian call was only one among many in Paul's work. As for the rest of his work, Paul carried it out with a burden which he bore before the Lord. If we have to wait for the brothers to come to us before we will work, we may wait a lifetime for nothing. We work because we have a burden, because we know that the time is short, the need is great, and Satan's attack is fierce. We are forced to be diligent. Slothfulness can make an otherwise useful man useless. It can turn a man of riches into a man who works only to a third, a fifth, or merely a tenth of what he is capable of! Everyone who knows God and who is useful in His hand is diligent.