Living It

I have been cleaning out from under the many juniper trees (bushes?) in our yard. Since the junipers grow low to the ground, it is difficult to reach under, scrape off the dried grass and smooth the dirt out so that everything looks nice. The old back (and I mean that OLD part literally) takes a beating as I bend and twist and scrape with my hula hoe. Still, I feel a sense of accomplishment when I have finished and look out into my yard that, despite lots of dirt, has trees that are void of the ugly dried grass.

I sometimes find it difficult to clean out things in my life that make it ugly. Don't get me wrong. I don't do anything to save myself. I do have a responsibility to allow the Holy Spirit to work out his life in me. That is what the scripture calls, "work out your salvation with fear and trembling."

I know I have written about this before but I feel so strongly about it. I see people in the churches who seem to think that just going to church and saying all the right thing while there makes them right with God. Yet I see so many who simply do not live out in their lives what the scripture says about kindness, gossip, forgiveness, loving others as themselves, mercy and so many other basics of the faith. Why is that?

Is it because Christians don't know what the scripture says? Is it because they are not truly believers? Is it because they think it's not important?

Let's examine our lives and see if we are REALLY living out what we say we believe. That is the true evidence of a follower of Jesus.

Getting off my soapbox now, Gloria

P.S. I just thought there may be some too young to get the "soapbox" thing. It comes from when people would get in the square and stand on a box and express their opinions, sometimes adamantly!