Here at the Campbell house, we set aside our Fridays as our cleaning day, or Day of Preparation. July 24, 2015, however, was our super super heavy duty cleaning day because the next day, July 25, is the wedding day of Mr. and Mrs. Campbell’s youngest son, John. We swept the house until the dirt was an ancient memory, cleaned the windows until they shone, put beautiful lace drapes and candles and rose garlands, and decorated with a silver arch intertwined with fairy lights (Christmas lights), more purple rose garlands and tulle.
One of our tasks for the day on Friday was burning all of the extra boxes and junk mail. Mrs. Campbell put me to this task, and after she had gone inside and the boxes burned down to smoldering ash, I raked around spread the fire to anything that might be underneath. As I raked, I found a sales catalog with edges burnt to a crisp, but it would catch fire. I pulled it apart with the rake, scattering the pages again, and the fire relight, swallowing each page in seconds. As I watched the flames spread to another stack of pages and die out again, things started turning in my mind.
We as Christians are kind of like those papers. Have you ever noticed when we’re standing alone in our beliefs, we will sometimes compromise little things (oh, these shorts aren’t too bad, I’ve seen shorter; oh, this movie isn’t too bad, I’ve seen worse; etc) and eventually, if we have no support or Christian influences, we disintegrate to ashes of our faith? We compromise more and more, until all we have left is saying “I’m a Christian. See, I love people.” and continue in our sin.
Guys, as Christians, we can live in any part of the world without another Christian influence, and still refuse to live according to the customs, patterns, and ways. Learning how to pass control of your life over to Christ is just a part of the journey of discipleship.
Romans 8:1 says There is threrefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. (KJV) Verse two goes on to say that the law of the Spirit of Christ makes us free from the law of sin. How cool is that??? When Jesus died for us on the cross, when He took the scourging, the hatred, the agony of the climb up that hill, He changed the law for us. He made it so that we were no longer under the old law (the Ten Commandments), the sacrificial law. Can you believe it? Someone loved you SO MUCH, that He took on every punishment you ever deserved, just so you could live forever with Him.
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