Our Easter dinner last week was simple. We had no company, so my husband and I decided on a steak and potatoes meal instead of a more traditional Easter feast. He had been craving some corn on the cob, so I added that to the menu. When the time came to eat, we wanted to use the little corn holders with the spikes on them that push into the cob, to protect our fingers from the heat and the messy melted butter. Unfortunately, we could not find them anywhere. We searched every cabinet, every drawer, inside any covered container, in the pantry, in the microwave cart – every place we could think to look.
Evidently, we hadn’t eaten corn on the cob for some time or at least one of us would have remembered when we last used them and where we had put them. We muddled through the meal like true pioneers and are recovering from the experience quite nicely, but this became one of those simple object lessons that God uses in my life so much. If you don’t use something, you will lose it. That’ll preach!
There are a lot of objects to keep up with in my household, but God has given us many things in our spiritual house as well. In fact, the Bible says in 1 Peter 1:2-4,
“ Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, 3 as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, 4 by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
Just like a physical object can be misplaced and forgotten, it is possible to disregard the things of the spirit to the point that they are not operating in your life. Peter goes on to say in verses 5-9 of Chapter 1,
“5 But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, 6 to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, 7 to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. 8 For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.”
The corn holders were mine, but they are certainly not abounding, and they are definitely unfruitful because I can’t even locate them. 😊 If I’m not staying mindful of faith, virtue, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness and love, those things will be harder and harder to find in my life, making me ineffective as a Christian. Peter says to give all diligence to these things. I like to think of myself as organized in the things of my household, but the system broke down somewhere. At least the failure to keep all my things at hand has reminded me to keep the things that God has given me at the forefront of my life so that I’ll use them and not lose them!
No comments:
Post a Comment