Sometimes I find myself coasting. I know enough of what is "right" and "wrong", not just in my heart, but in the eyes of others. So you learn to talk the talk. You spend time speaking on how to live for the LORD and not enough time actually living for the LORD.
This is a real risk for those that lead in the church and those that teach. Mainly because we know more than enough to coast for a very long time. If your car engine is idle and out of gear you may go a ways before problems come upon you. And at the first hill that shows up a coasting life will be very easy to see. Because you will not make it over.
LORD ... engage my life. Help me to look first to you and tap into the power you have for me.
I don't like cleaning. Strangely, I do like to vacuum. My wife likes to clean though.
We were going through our house and cleaning out all the drawers with junk in them and under beds and in the storage room and in the closets and on and on. Of course to me the stuff she was going through and throwing away wasn't junk ( yes ... it was ... I just don't like to admit that ). And thinking about it, the reason it really bugged me was because I didn't want her to see all the junk I did keep instead of getting rid of.
It is the same with God and the sin in my life. You don't want to deal with it and expose it to God. But your body is God's temple. Unlike your salvation keeping it clean isn't a one shot deal. Cleaning out the mess of your life is a continual process. As the temple in Jerusalem was cleaned and repaired time and time again. So we need to work on our spiritual life. Open up the windows and throw out the trash. That amazing feeling you have standing in your cleaned up room is nothing compared to standing before God with a cleaned up soul.
We have grape vines in our backyard that I need to clean up. Part of that is finding the branches that no longer produce and cutting them from the vine. And another part is finding the ones that do produce and shaping them, by cutting them back, to become healthier.
The LORD is our vine dresser. He cuts away that which doesn't bear fruit and cuts into those that do as well. We may focus on the parts that are cut away and cast into the fire, yet it is what is left that interests me. Being fruitful in the LORD isn't about being left alone. It is about being pruned. To be cut into the shape the is best for us and is most pleasing to God.
This isn't an easy process. Pruning stresses the branch so that it will do what the vine dresser desires. Likewise God will allow many painful events into our lives. Nothing that will break us as simple branches in His faithful hands. But events that will rather shape us to produce the fruit He desires from us.
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