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Our spiritual lives are somewhat like a house. When we become Christians, God makes a bunch of really great changes in our lives, but there is still work that needs to be done.
James 1:19-27 – Using a mirror is a good place to start if we have something on our face. However just looking into a mirror doesn’t make the food on our face go away. Nor does just reading our Bibles or listening to sermons or listening to good music make our spiritual lives better.
The goal of this message is to help us prepare for our revivals this week. That we could come to the point this week that when God points something out in our lives we actually tackle it and resolve to do work on it.
A Person Who had A Blemish & Didn’t Respond Correctly
1 Samuel 2:29-30
Eli had a lot of good things going for him. However he had a major problem as well. Eli honored his sons more than he honored God.
Eli was warned twice, by this man of God and then later by Samuel, that judgement was coming. Eli apparently does nothing even with these two warnings from godly men.
Why We Look In The Mirror And Walk Away
- We can get used to our problems.
- We can get tired of trying to work on our problems without success.
- We can have distractions in our lives that cause us to lose focus.
We do need to be careful that we don’t get to the point where we are overly sensitive about the problems in our lives. We need to be aware and working on things, but we also need to realize that we will never be perfect.
Why We Need To Work On Our Shortcomings
Our shortcomings do affect the church family around us. A high level of tolerance for our personal faults can be discouraging to other members around us.
We don’t need to be perfect people before we reach out to others, but having spiritual blemishes can seriously affect how effective our outreach is.
John 15:7 – If we are content with what we see in the mirror and don’t make any changes, we aren’t letting God’s word abide in us.
2 Peter 1:10 – At some point our spiritual blemishes can become a rash. If we aren’t making every effort… there is a very good chance that we can have serious problems because of that.
What If God Speaks To Us This Week?
- Surrender – not the kind of surrender that says “Lord I’ll do anything – as long as _________.” Full, complete surrender.
- Seek God’s wisdom/strength – ultimately this is not about self-discipline and willpower, but rather our connection to God.
- Study God’s word – find some verses about the thing that God is speaking to you about and perhaps memorize them.
- Scrutinize our priorities – maybe there are other things that are more important to us. What are the things that are pulling you away from taking action on the things God is speaking to you about.
- Share your struggles – James 5:16
- Set your expectations – realize that it could take some time, there could be setbacks, but ultimately God can and will be faithful in doing the work in us. 1 Corinthians 1
Our lives can be useful, but there are always things that we can work on in our spiritual lives.
Let us never stop improving.