Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Feeling Worn Out and Rusty?


The picture is of my husband’s Dad’s old Farmall H tractor that hasn’t been moved in years. It is in our pasture where my husband put it after his Dad passed away almost 16 years ago. I am sure he would love to refurbish it to make it look new, but that would cost lots of money. So, it continues to set where it was placed those many years ago, becoming more rusty as the years go by and useless as a farm tractor. Yet, it is a memento of years gone by when he used to drive the tractor for his Dad in its’ better days.

Just like the tractor, we can become worn out and rusty. As we grow older, if we don’t maintain our bodies, we get to the point we are unable to do much; our bones ache, and it is hard to walk or maybe even get out of bed without groaning and complaining.

You have heard the old saying, ‘we are what we eat’…….and we are also what we ‘listen to, read, and speak’. We listen to gossip and slang, and we start to gossip and talk with words unbecoming to us, as Christians. If we never study or read the Word, how do we expect to grow spiritually, and stay ‘alive’ spiritually? How can we speak words of encouragement, wisdom, love, or of spiritual content, if we aren’t renewing our minds with the Word of God?

2 Timothy 2:15 tells us, "Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." We can sit and listen to the preacher, but that isn’t studying. We need to study for ourselves and also be doers of the word.

James 1:22-24, "But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass:"
When we become Christians, we are supposed to put off the old and put on the new. We are to be ‘renewed in the spirit of our mind’. (Ephesians 4:23) Sometimes, we get lax, become worn out, and rusty, spiritually.

So, let us begin to wipe away the ‘rust’ from our ‘bodies’ and begin to saturate our minds in the Word. This way, we can become strong spiritually, in order to be able to combat anything that comes our way. The Word does tell us to ‘put on the whole armor of God that ye might be able to withstand the wiles of the devil.’ (Ephesians 6:11)

Linked at Conservative Cat
Pursuing Holiness
Third World County

Technorati Tags: , , , ,