The day has finally come, you have been sifting, rearranging, cleaning up and now
you have a large pile of trash-which includes broken items, old and outdated,
that are no longer usable, items that have been sitting far longer than
anticipated and taking up space.This day has been a long time coming, and it is amazing to witness and watch how when the day has finally arrived seeing the eagerness to want to get all that trash removed and cleaned up and to finally have this done. It was equally amazing to witness the perplexity of some on the trash day. The same ones who were eager to complete this task, now suddenly started to have second thoughts and wanting to keep the pile of rubbish.
I could not believe what I was witnessing and hearing, it was at that moment I started thinking about what I have been witnessing on a spiritual level, and I wondered how many of us do this in our spiritual walk with our Lord Jesus, as we grow and mature in our faith walk and commitment to Christ.
When we are walking with the Lord and he points out the things that are rubbish and old and broken items that we are still holding onto from our old lives before we accepted Christ, and even the things that we have collected while walking with the lord that we have picked up along the way, just like children do.
These items are to be thrown away and we should be eager to do this for the love of Christ. But when that trash day comes, do we toss it immediately or do we keep it? Are we trying to find some nostalgic memory/feeling towards it to hold on to?
We
know that the Lord is telling us to purge this from our lives, for it has been
here long enough, it needs to go. Do we listen or do we hold on?
{Apostle Paul tells us in Philippines 3:7-8} “But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus My Lord for whom I have suffered the Loss of all things and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ.”
Our Lord also tells us in {Luke 9:62} ”… but Jesus said to him no one after putting his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the Kingdom of God.”
Let us take Lots wife as an example of desiring the old {worldly goods} the trash/rubbish looking back on Sodom and Gomorrah because she desired the things of the world over the things of God. And she was turned into a pillar of salt. {Genesis 19:17 and 19 :25-26} and Jesus reminds us in {Luke 17 32-33} “Remember Lots wife, whoever ever seeks to keep his life will lose it and who ever loses his life will preserve it.”
Let us remember that there is a spiritual consequence to holding onto the worldly rubbish, and letting our fleshly desire of nostalgia that keeps us desiring what is behind, instead of us always looking forward to desiring the new things in Christ.
Every
old thing that we hold on to is robbing Christ from filling that space with his
spirit.
THE TIGHTER WE HOLD ON TO SOMETHING IN OR OF THIS WORLD THE MORE IT WILL HURT WHEN IT IS TIME TO LET GO!
Br. Steve Hoffner
