It’s critical to Christian growth that we weed out whatever we can that is negative toward God’s will for our lives. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit. We must allow nothing to defile that temple or obstruct God’s workings within us.

When God tells us we are forgiven, set free, and uniquely commissioned to do our part in performing His glorious will on earth, our task is to believe and to abide in His purifying and empowering grace, through obedience allowing ourselves to be conformed to the Word. If we allow distractions, if we allow others to come and talk down our calling, these are like weeds choking the seed of the Word, making it of no effect. We soon will lose confidence that we heard God correctly in the first place, or if we still believe, that we can fulfill that to which we are called. We will be diverted and we will make no progress. Valuable time and opportunity will be lost.

When God cut His covenant with Abraham, birds of prey attempted to take away the sacrifice before it could be consumed by God’s holy fire. Abraham rose up and drove the birds away. Abraham was powerless to consummate the covenant himself – God would walk alone through the sacrifice to do that, signifying that He was taking to Himself sole responsibility for bringing about the covenantal promises – but Abraham did have a responsibility to present the sacrifice properly and to protect it from being stolen away.

So too with us. While God alone can bring about the wonderful promises He has given in Christ -promises of peace, eternal life, fruitfulness, and fullness of joy – it is our responsibility to present ourselves with the correct attitude, as a living sacrifice, and to prevent that attitude from being stolen away. If we jealously guard the anointing within us, God will be free to perfect that which concerns us, cause us to triumph, and bring us to higher pastures.

Lately, I’ve been spending time landscaping where I’m living. And I’m doing it the old-fashioned way – with shovel, steel rake, johnson bar and wheelbarrow. There I am, with post-grad credits, having owned and managed a corporation for many years, and I’m grading, trenching, digging out rocks, and clearing brush. And you know what? I am absolutely loving it, every moment (except for the torturous mayflies).

And the reason is God’s sweet presence, and the absence of negativity. The only negativity is that which I allow, and I’m working on that. I’m definitely learning to stand my ground against the devil.

You can have all the power, position, fame and fortune that this world offers. I would rather work a steel rake – if that’s what God has for me to do – than have all of it, if it meant losing God.

As Rees Howells would often say, guard your position of abiding. Nothing is more important to seeing success in God. Do not allow any negative influences to spoil that precious attitude where faith works through love. Where we abandon dead works and instead adopt a willingness that allows God’s power to flow into us.

Sometimes it’s expensive to divest ourselves of negative influences. Relationships may have to be altered or even broken, and codependent relationships are often protected by barriers of fear – fear of confronting and fear of losing the comfort of the relationship.
But it’s worth it. Put God first, and He’ll see to it that all things are added to you. And they’ll be added the right way. They’ll be permanent, and they’ll give peace and joy.

Difficult times are coming. There is no time to lose. Each one of us must be fully reconciled to God if we are walk in joy and be effective. We need to parse our lives carefully, and weed out anything we can that conflicts with God’s design for us.

Posted via email from paul1149’s posterous