When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God. But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things! Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives. Let us not become conceited, or provoke one another, or be jealous of one another. (Galatians 5:19-26, NLT)
Last night I had a dream about excavating. In the natural, I know very little about excavating. In fact, I know next to nothing about the subject. I can use common sense to piece together how it might work but I don't even know the name of the heavy equipment that would be used in excavations so please bear with me as I try to explain the dream.
I saw top soil that was dry, hard, and rocky. Then I saw a big excavating machine, like heavy machinery, digging down and pulling up dark, rich soil. The bucket on the machine would dig deep down through the top of the ground, then slowly pull it's contents up as bugs, roots, and rocks fell out of the bucket. Underneath was pure, fresh, life giving, mineral and nutrient filled soil that would be used to grow life!
One definition for excavate provided by Free Online Dictionary states, "to remove by digging" and "remove earth carefully and systematically from an area in order to find buried remains".
Once we received Jesus, we were given a new heart and a new spirit! Our stony, stubborn heart was taken out. Now we have a tender, responsive heart. (Ezekiel 36:26) We may not have known that prior to today. We may not have been taught that prior to today. We may have been taught that but forgot about it. But today is a new day! Now we've heard it, seen it in His Word, and now we do it because we are wise! We immediately begin practicing what we learn, never to return to yesterday! (James 1:22, Isaiah 43:18, 19)
As we allow the Holy Spirit to systematically remove rocks (sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these)
from our lives, what is left is pure, fresh, life giving, mineral and nutrient filled soil (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control)!
He is the vine and we are the branches. We remain in Him, producing much fruit. Apart from Him, we can do nothing. Today is a new day. We've been taught the Word, we abide in Him, and we produce much fruit because He is teaching us to number our days and we are gaining a heart of wisdom! (James 1:22, Psalm 90:12)
We practically apply this to our daily lives in the following manner. When we are tempted to be hostile, we crucify that by producing gentleness. When we are tempted to quarrel, we nail that temptation to the cross and we replace quarreling with kindness! When we are tempted to operate in dissension, we refuse to feed the lustful nature. Instead we operate in the Spirit and pursue peace! (Psalm 34:14)
Brother Kenneth E. Hagin gives powerful advice in his book, Growing Up Spiritually. He writes about sitting at a table with his son and a pastor, when the pastor, "got to talking about some of the church members, airing some of their faults and failures.." Brother Hagin responded with, "I would rather you'd curse in front of him." (Hagin's son) "That wouldn't register on him." But for the twelve years I pastored, he always thought every member we ever had was an angel." "They weren't-any more than all his members were." "He never heard his parents say one word about any deacon, Sunday School teacher, superintendent, or church member. You need to be careful what you say around children, and other people as well."
Interesting side note:
In 2 Timothy 3:16 through 17 we are taught, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work."
I believe it is important to deeply examine the fact that, sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, drunkenness, wild parties, are all clumped together in the same passage as hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy…….and other sins like these.
That's food for thought and a whole other blog post.
Most loving, faithful, and gracious Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus, we welcome You to come and excavate our hearts and our lives! Thank You for this wonderful new day, a new day to abide in You producing much fruit! Thank You for removing the rocks in our lives and replacing them with pure, fresh, life giving, mineral and nutrient filled soil! Instead of producing rocks, we shall produce life! We are hearing and doing Your teachings and we are gaining wisdom! We are building our homes on our Solid Rock! We operate in Your law of love completely excavating all religious law. We belong to You Christ Jesus and we have nailed the passions and desires of our sinful nature to the cross and crucified them there! We live by Your Spirit and we follow the Spirit's leading in every part of our lives! We are never conceited and we do not provoke one another! We continually stand amazed by You, King of all Kings, Jesus!
Matthew 7:24:29
Galatians 5:19-26, NLT
