Pretend for a moment that you're planting a garden, and you're so excited - you can't wait for the plants to grow big and start producing. You fertize it and water it liberally. You watch as your squash plants flourish, and your cucumbers shoot runners across the ground with tiny yellow blossoms. The tomato plants stretch taller and taller. You can almost taste those veggies! You have to go away for the weekend, so you carefully water your garden before you leave. After you come home and unpack your suitcase, you hurry out to check on your plants. You want to see how it's grown while you were gone. But...something's happened. Something's different. Your squash plants have holes in the leaves. The cucumber plant has wilted, and upon closer inspection, you notice that, instead of drinking in the water and nutrients you've provided, the stem has begun to sit and rot. And your tomato bushes? Their brown-spotted branches look like they've suddenly grown tired of standing upright and are beginning to droop. Your hopes for a high yield suddenly seem like a dream.
There's many different reasons why plants develop problems - bugs, diseases, too much water, too little water. I don't know a whole lot about plants, but I do know that I can be a lot like those plants - and so can other Christians!
Recently, I heard a sermon from Dr. Larry Brown of Washington, Iowa. He was talking about the story of Lot and Abram in the Bible (Genesis 13:8-10), and the time when they parted ways in the valley. Abram told Lot to "separate thyself". In the beginning, Lot had gone with Abram, following even though neither of them had any idea where they were going. Lot could have chosen to stay behind, but instead he chose to follow a Godly man, Abram. The Bible doesn't say anything bad about Lot before this time. But once they parted ways, Lot quickly went downhill. He began to make wrong choices and to head in the wrong direction. Before, perhaps Lot prayed and worshipped God with his uncle. The Bible doesn't say. But once he separated himself from Godly company, he couldn't stand alone. Bro. Brown called him a "parasite Christian living on another man's spirituality".
God forbid that should be true of us! Just like the plants in our "pretend" garden, we know all the things to say, all the things to do - we look like incredibly spiritual Christians. We read our Bible and know lots of verses, we pray, and are busy serving in the church, and God has blessed us so much. But - deep down, instead of using those blessings for the Lord - we've gotten comfortable and are starting to "rot". Oh, we read our Bible - enough to get by, enough to say we did (at least 2 or 3 verses.this morning before rushing off to "serve the Lord"). We know lots of verses - how could we not? We've heard them in church since we were little. We pray - at mealtimes, when we need help, and when we feel guilty because we told a friend we would pray for them (we'd hate to tell them we forgot). We've gotten "handout" after handout from the pulpit, but the truth is, we don't know how to gather our own "meat" from studying the Bible. We're living off sermons and the spirituality of other truly Godly Christians, but we ourselves have no deep, lasting relationship with our Creator. When we get away from church, and must go to work in the world, suddenly we start wilting. We start complaining with our co-workers and are embarrassed or "too shy" to tell them about Christ.
Let's get serious with our Maker, and start developing our own root system - study the Bible for ourselves, develop a regular prayer life, and start serving God with the proper motives!
