Learning From the Energizer Bunny!

I know you’ve seen him – the cute, sandal’s-clad, sun-glasses-wearing bunny who beats a bass-drum and marches along, pausing only long enough to heighten the impact of the tag-line of the Energizer Battery Company’s advertisement – "Still going." But that line has been amended from the original tag-line. According to an article at aaaa.org (website of the American Association of Advertising Agencies), "still going" has been the tag- line for Energizer Batteries since 2016 when Camp+King took over Energizer’s business. Before that, for more than 25 years (1989 till 2016), the tag-line was "Going, and going, and going." A decade after his original launch in 1989, in 1999, Ad Age named the Energizer Bunny one of the top brand icons of the 20^th century and described him as "the ultimate symbol of longevity, perseverance, and determination."



I like the Energizer Bunny. I like him because every time I see that ad’ I am reminded of a vital lesson every Christian must learn. To ultimately be with God in eternity we must make up our minds to keep "going and going and going." Why? First, our Savior who kept going and going and going. Hebrews 12:2 describes Jesus as the "author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of God." Hear me now – the "ultimate symbol of longevity, perseverance, and determination" is not the Energizer Bunny, as enduring as he is. No, sir; no, ma’am; no way! That designation was staked and claimed two thousand years ago when Jesus kept going and going and going until He went to the cross and finished what God had sent Him to do (John 17:4; 19:16ff). But even then He wasn’t through going. The Gospel reports that God raised Him from the dead and that, to use the words of Hebrews 12:2 quoted above, He "sat down at the right hand of God." Two thousand years later, the Son of God is still going and going and going in the hearts and lives of genuine Christians who go about preaching and reaching out with the Gospel and doing good to the glory of God! The second reason we need to keep going and going and going is because the devil is on the loose and on the go. He is described in 1 Peter 5:8 as "our adversary the devil [who] walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour." After 45 years of intense Bible study I have discovered only one thing about the devil worthy of being imitated by Christ’s followers – he keeps going and going and going. He is relentless in pursuit of his purpose, diabolical as it is. He is committed to hinder us from getting to heaven (1 Thessalonians 2:18). He will use temptation, lust, deceit, falsehood, foes, friends, family, brothers and sisters in Christ – literally anything or anybody he can to drain your spiritual energy and stamina and cause you to quit Christ and His church. He will blind your mind and hide the gospel from your heart if you let him (2 Corinthians 4:3-4). But don’t let Him. In the words of 2 Corinthians 4:1, 16, "faint not" – is, don’t lose heart. One church’s slogan was stated in these words: "Wake up, sing up, preach up, pray up and pay up – but never give up or let up or back up or shut up until the cause of Christ in this church and in this world is built up." When it comes to doing God’s will, let us learn from and be like the Energizer Bunny – keep going, and going, and going ...

       by: Dan Gulley, Smithville, TN