Father, I just want to say that I am grateful for Your everlasting love…your never-ending patience. I feel that sometimes I am all over the place, but You are the immovable rock upon which I stand. All praise to You, God Almighty!
♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦
I had the opportunity to text a bit with the friend who I referred to in yesterday’s post. In response to a statement he made, I replied,
“God has changed you – the old has passed, the new has come. Cling to that relationship. Every day pour out yourself before Him. He will hold you tight and will not let go. Unfortunately, we are the ones to let our grasp begin to slip. Hold tight, my friend.”
I am usually much more conversational in our texts but today I felt the need to give a well thought out response. As followers of Jesus, it is imperative that we see the utmost of seriousness in everything we do and say. Now, I’m not saying we have to be sourpuss, pickle-faced believers. That is no way to live, especially as we respond to what our Savior has done for us! Our Creator is Love and the outpouring of that is joy!
The point I want to make is that we must always be on our guard.
Peter in his first letter to the early Church driven from Jerusalem into the world cautioned,
Be sober [well balanced and self-disciplined], be alert and cautious at all times. That enemy of yours, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion [fiercely hungry], seeking someone to devour. 1 Peter 5:8 (AMP)
I would admonish you, in these perilous times – and I truly believe that every era has its perils – cling unrelentingly to your relationship with God! As I stated in my opening prayer, He is the immovable rock upon which we stand.
Secondly, every day pour out yourself before Him. The Apostle Paul says we are vessels,
But we have this precious treasure [the good news about salvation] in [unworthy] earthen vessels [of human frailty], so that the grandeur and surpassing greatness of the power will be [shown to be] from God [His sufficiency] and not from ourselves. 2 Corinthians 4:7 (AMP) (emphasis mine)
We are vessels, yes, but think about it. A container of any sort left outside collects all kinds of things inside – dust, bugs, rain, debris, dew. Just its exposure to the world, just its openness invites any and everything to be taken into the very heart of its being.
How about you and me? Every day we are exposed to a wide variety of things. We smell, we hear, we see, we touch…and all of those experiences are taken into the very heart of our being. We also regularly dredge, up from the depths of our souls – good things and bad – pain, love, bitterness, peace, hate, to name but a few. But each of those things is poured into the vessel that we are.
Late last summer we put our pool cover in place. Since then, rain and melted snow along with leaves, branches, bird droppings, insects, seedlings, and who knows what else has collected in that concoction of nature. Now the water under the cover was treated to remain as pure as possible. I have not looked but it should be clear enough to see to the bottom. Now the question is, how wise would I be to just allow all of that contaminated water from the cover into the “pure” water below?
So, each day, to keep the world’s contamination from intermingling with the purity of our souls, we must pour out ourselves before the Great Purifier of our souls.
(to be continued)
Apr 28th, 2020, Tue, 5:44 pm
