Staying Sharp

Staying Sharp

6/12/18

Everyone knows that if a knife becomes dull it really cannot function as it needs to, thus become a potential hazard to you and to everyone else to may use it.  Many of us attribute this and then applied exampled truth to only the physical aspects and tools that affect our lives.  However, God wants us to understand that it is the condition of our spiritual lives and existence that relates to our physical lives that is the most important recognition that we can understand.  We have become so dull and lazy when it comes to our purpose and mission fulfillment that our effectiveness to the dying world can be classified as garbage and deservingly subject to the trash.  God has a different message, one that we have been taught and one that we should be teaching others who are searching for truth.

I had the privilege of attending a Christian private school that was at our church in Cleveland, Texas.  It was a great school with a wonderful academic standard that was enjoyed by most of the students that were there; however, it could be a tad cumbersome especially if your attitude and drive were not always sharp and attentive that the curriculum demanded.  If we only did our work, followed the assignments, asked for the teacher’s help when needed and most importantly studied and passed the tests in the required amount of time everything would be roses and no sidetracks would have to be addressed.  Well, as one can imagine, things did not follow such patterns all the time and some students became lazy and thus had the extra privileges withheld until the grades came back up to standard level.  This was a process to lose and a process to gain back both of which could easily be avoided if we only would obey the rules and focus our attention on what we were supposed to attain.

Of course, I fell into this category and at times found myself daydreaming instead of finishing my English workbook, it was this subject that cost me almost every time and one that instead of me asking for the needed help I hid in my cubby and goofed off instead.  At Heritage, we used the PACE program of learning and instruction.  It was a great curriculum and explained what needed to be done quite nicely.  The level of instruction was to the point and on one’s level of understanding, the program even encouraged those who were behind on any level to hurry up and get caught up with the others, not in a condescending manner but one that made the student feel accomplished and successful.  Still, some of us did not care to complete all of the activities required and since this was the case it meant that all extracurricular activities were off limits until the grades came back up.  The process did not care if you stood on the sidelines or sat on the bench through each game or even the entire season your grades had to be present in order for one to participate.  This process taught me a lot about myself too, but for some time it frustrated me but I pointed my frustration in the wrong direction thus giving up on that program for another.  It was my own incorporated dullness that led me to not wanting to study enough to get back with my team, it became such an issue that practicing was not even an option either, a hole I had dug for myself yet corrected the setting by filling in the hole with me still in it.

How could such a luring prospect of returning to the pitch or the court continue to deter me from my dilemma?  I understand that most young people go through a process where school and its true necessities are not the most pleasant setting to be in but it is only for a short period of time and that it is the starting point for your future.  What you dictate to yourself in school shall follow you as a guide for when you graduate and set forth to achieve other opportunities, a concept that hardly any young person grasps today.  I have to admit that the spirit I portrayed concerning school when I was younger is nothing to what it has grown into today.  This intense and immensely undisciplined and angered attitude rules the halls today and is constantly fueled with the lie of entitlement that only Satan can provide.  I despise what the kids are being taught and what they are allowed to get away with, for the world has taught that the system is okay and that everyone has their own ways of finding out the truth, an eternal variable that will cost most of these beautiful kids their lives.  The sharpness of these kids begins with their learning of worldly ways and then protracts them onto others as a controlling measure in order to get their own way.  This is a deadly process and one that does not represent order by any magnitude, which as each month passes we witness other violent acts that truly define what lies within our hearts.

As my time on the sidelines became draw out, I really had no concept about how I was harming my team for not being a portion of the squad that they had been accustomed to having with them.  I am not saying that I was that important but for me not playing the position that they were accustomed to that was the issue, for while a good person replaced me, their trust had been compromised because of my selfish inhibitions and willingness to complete my school work so I could return to the playing field.  It is this part of the topic that really gets me because as I look back at the entire setting I realize that I was hurting my own personal being it is obvious that I was hurting a well-oiled machine that did not deserve to take the brunt of my selfishness and laziness.  I wonder if we have the guts enough to take a look back our past actions and see just how much our selfishness played a part in the past issues of others, then I wonder if we would even recognize that we should have done better.  It is this point that God wants us to understand just how important it is to stay sharp at all times in order for us not to fall dull and eventually become useless due to our own laziness tendencies that the world loves to encourage.

In Revelation 3:14-22 we have the perfect example of what God is trying to tell us through one of the churches and the spirit she harbors during a specific time.  I am no biblical scholar and will not ever proclaim to be, but when God gives a specific example He is always dead on and so much so that there cannot be any logical rebuttal to such truth.  The church of Laodicea in this passage gives us an example that cannot be denied for we could honestly place any church today into this passage and we would not be wrong in its description.  All of us have fallen into at least one of these categorical descriptions and have loved the setting so much that we have remained in such status.  Our hearts have become hard dry soil because of the ways that we have accepted the world without remorse and until we allow God to take His plow and till our hearts again, we are sunk and will never be able to produce a wonderful harvest again.  It is for this reason that the Church no longer has the edge to complete her mission to the world, for when one lives in such accordance with something it feels like one does not need to minister to it as it should but rather accept it and justify it for who it is instead.  The Church should know better but when her priorities have been rearranged for so long she cannot help but give in to the truth for a lie thus voiding out the eternal life message for one of destruction and death.

As long as the Church lives in this capacity there will be no way that she will be able to complete the mission that she was created to do.  It will rise to a point where she will no longer be able to define the Book of Genesis and its meaning or even care to for that matter, oh wait, we are almost there now, aren’t we?  When an organization loses its meaning from where it began, that organization ceases to be the company that it was when it was founded.  The same is true for you as well and since you are the Church that means the Church is in the same boat when it comes to its foundational roots.  Dullness does not take too long to overcome the best-conditioned sword or opening object and if not made sharp again soon can even become a hazard to itself or the user of such tool.  It is this condition that Satan desires your life to be and as stated above the Church as well.  Satan does not want you to become productive in any manner for if and when we do it can always trigger the truth about our existence within our heads and hearts. 

One of the more specific ways dullness is introduced into our lives is through compliance and false equality for these entities and conditions cannot be truly obtained unless God is at the center of their presence.  When a leader of a company decides to conform themselves into such a dull position they voluntarily place the entire organization at risk for a takeover, that takeover may be from within and on a low level or it may stem from the top down.  Conformity may be a popular stance to show but it is one of weakness and indifference and I can guarantee that when a competitor recognizes this they will act upon it as soon as possible just to gain the edge over your presentation.  We cannot deny the fact that this picture that this paragraph has painted is exactly what has occurred in our nation and it is right now eating away in our churches thus acting like the satanic cankerworm that he is.  We, the Church, have failed to look into the eyes of Satan and recognize his true intentions but instead have glanced at his beauty and have fallen for this lie of his and since we have been in this mode we have also accepted the lies that the world has planted within it and accept it as a natural state.

When Jesus told His followers to go into the world and to teach the gospel He did so for a reason and that reason was that He understood that the world was already corrupt and needed a Savior.  It came as no surprise to Jesus that the world was in trouble way back when He walked the earth so why would the world just all of a sudden “repent” and turn from its ways now?  It cannot for its ruler and leader cannot so that pattern is ours to break and to show whoever wants to know the eternal truth those words.  But there is no way possible that we can do this if we do not separate ourselves from the world and complete what Jesus wants us to do.  It is this dullness that now defines our failure and the condition that the Church is living; it has become a liability and an object of laughter and hindrance to our presence.  We are no longer taken as a serious entity or viable example and this shall continue to occur until we stand up and allow ourselves to teach the truth about God again.  It is for this reason that the New Testament was written for even though it was just a few decades since the death and resurrection of Christ occurred the Church had fallen into a blanket of dangers that had quickly enveloped it and was threatening to end its life before it truly lived up to her potential.  If this team had been easily persuaded to write an entire Testament, what could be written about today’s Church?

Our nation has purposefully taken off the mantle that God established for her and she is now at risk to become a wasteland.  The Church has done the same and continues to expound filth from her mouth and heart towards God and the His Laws, and even though there are some that still hold on to the true faith and teach the correct gospel we are far and few between but it is imperative that we continue living in accordance to God’s Ways so that the light of truth shall be given to those who wish to hear the truth.  The Church in Laodicea defines what we have become through the allowance of the world into our lives.  The mentioning of the Church of Laodicea in Revelation Chapter 3 is one of the last mentioning’s of the “Church: in God’s Word, this cannot be a coincidence at all for nothing about the Word of God is a coincidence.  It is this detail that we need to understand is one that could cost us our very existence and should be noted as such.  Repent, Church for the time is short and it is time we need to work for God’s team once again and stop standing on the sidelines and harming the eternal truth that needs to be shared.

DLB