Last weekend I spent a good portion of the time refinishing my hardwood floor in the new house. As I was spending many hours stripping, scrubbing, brushing, sanding, and wiping, God gave me many illustrations for what I was doing and how it coincided to my Christian life. Let me explain. Here is the flooring activity, followed up by how it illustrates the Christian life.
Removing the old floor (tearing up my carpet).
This flooring activity is a great example of the Christian life. When God calls us to be His children we must remove our old sinful self and cast off our old habits and expose our true character for God to refinish in His plan. We can never have a new shiny beautiful worship life in Jesus, if we never remove the old self and surrender ourselves to His work. We must remove our old habits, activities, friendships, and traits if we are to have a new life.
Strip away the old dirt and grime.
This again is a great example of what must take place in our Christian life. Not only must we remove and cast off our old life, we must allow God to strip away the layers of sinful dirt and grim from our lives and expose the true beautiful created part of us. Just like I spent many hard painful hours laboring over the floor, God will spend many hard painful hours stripping away at us. We to as God's children must also spend many painful hours stripping ourselves and the sin away from our lives. The stripping of the dirt from our lives is painful, trust me it hurts and takes a long time.
Sanding the floor smooth
This was a harder activity for me to see the Christian life in, but that is because this is the stage I am in the most right now and I could not recognize it. Not only does God strip away our sin and we join Him in the stripping process but God also sands away our rough spots and hard jagged edges. I have been experiencing this very much in my life very much. God uses people (my wife), places (my church), or activities (preaching) to smooth us and our rough spots out. God will continually sand and smooth us as we allow Him to. We must be open and ready and willing to bear the hard times to allow God to smooth us. Sanding and making the floor smooth was again hard and painful work and it was a labor of love. God love us so much that He will spend hours, days, and years, smoothing us, His children, out. We just need to give in to His loving touch in our lives.
Brushing on the Finish
I spent the most time brushing on the finishing coats of polyurethane and it took much time and layers. The Bible is our finish coat and it take many layers and continual immersion in it to shine and be bright for Jesus. My floor now shines and is bright only because of the finish coat that was continually applied over many brush stroke. We need to spend much time in the Bible allowing it to shine and finish us. The Bible is something that we need to continually brush on our lives because only then will be be bright and shining for Jesus.
Are you a floor that has been refinished for Jesus and by Jesus?
No comments:
Post a Comment