No Flow = No Go

Sunday’s Monday

I was at a meeting several weeks ago and one of the men had a drinking straw which was still crimped closed on one end. The question was asked to our BOB Group, what’s wrong with this picture? Which started a frenzy among the men, with comments and answers that ranged from, it’s useless, you can’t drink with that, to, nothing can flow through it. All these statements led me to think of stagnation, one could pour fluid into it and it would fill to overflowing simply because nothing could flow through. Even with a good steady source of fluid flow the fluid at the bottom of the straw would never get stirred up or replenished and would eventually stagnate.

To help understand this term; dictionary.com reads stagnation; the state or condition of stagnating, or having stopped, as by ceasing to run or flow. After a little more research, I found stagnation can be described as inert; lacking the ability or strength to move; lacking vigor; chemically inactive. Either of these terms could be used to describe the spiritual life of most Christians today. James 1:18 (NLT), tells us He chose to give birth to us by giving us his true word. And we, out of all creation, became his prized possession. In the beginning God gave man His word of truth, that we may know His best for us and experience heaven on earth. We failed miserably!

With that in mind, it is important to know why God’s human creation failed and continues to fail. The most reasonable excuse is we take God’s goodness, grace and mercy for granite. We become so short sighted that we lose sight of the big picture! We no longer see everything God has done for us and stop being grateful. We actually become expectant of God to continue to bless us, even though we’ve stopped offering our gratitude for His favor. We become self-absorbed, living as we desire and accepting all the accolades for any positive returns, while denouncing God’s judgement at every failure. Once again, God decided to give man His truth in the form of a human, as is prophesied in John 16:13 (NLT), When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own but will tell you what he has heard. He will tell you about the future.

Unfortunately, after thousands of years, most humans are still at square one! Far too many Christians attend church regularly, tithe and strive to fit the spiritual package laid out by man and they live absolutely miserable lives. We (all of us) far too easily, fall in traps of misinformation such as, if it ain’t King James it ain’t the bible or God helps those who help themselves or cleanliness is next to godliness. None of these things are written in scripture and yet they are accepted as God’s truth. There are thousands of such examples throughout history and they came about through stagnation! For whatever reason we became the blocked straw and stop God’s truth from flowing through us which, allowed man’s theories to contaminate our thinking. The bible tells in James 1:8 (NLT), Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything they do.

God depends on His children to be an open straw, allowing His love (the water of life) to continually flow through us into others. John 4:14 (NLT), But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.” As children of God we have a responsibility to live out 1 Peter 1:13 (NLT) So prepare your minds for action and exercise self-control. Put all your hope in the gracious salvation that will come to you when Jesus Christ is revealed to the world. Once we truly understand that we are in this world not of it, we can better understand God’s purpose for us. A pastor friend of mine Reverend Tom Early says it this way, “we are spiritual beings on a physical Journey and not physical beings on a spiritual Journey. When we are born again the Spirit in us is regenerated by the holy spirit and we are restored to a relation with God that enables us by His power in us to live a life of victory in fellowship with Him.”

I pray we all be filled with the wisdom of Isaiah 40:31 (NLT), 31 But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint. Amen

HAVE A BLESSED WEEK BY BEING A BLESSING TO OTHERS!

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