PRO 27:15-16 MSG
A nagging spouse is like the drip, drip, drip of a leaky faucet; You can’t turn it off, and you can’t get away from it.
You know, I see this less as a discussion about the relationship between my wife and I, and more about my relationship with God. It speaks to a lack of gratitude and a sense of entitlement that can creep into our lives when we face challenges.
When that unexpected emergency springs up, how often do I think that I shouldn’t encounter struggles and that God should make it better? Instead of being faithful that if the Lord is going to bring me to it, He will see us through it, and that even trials are a spiritual growing exercise that produces new fruit in our lives.
True spiritual growth is usually not comfortable. True change in our lives is usually not comfortable or easy. But we are given opportunities each day to either live like the royal Child of God that we claim ourselves to be, or to sit in our chains nagging our groom to be about those things that we think He should be bringing into the marriage – instead of realizing our fortune, realizing the price paid, realizing the depths of His love for us.
Oh we are a proud and blind generation, to accept this marriage proposal and to not prepare ourselves eagerly for the wedding ceremony. Instead of being grateful that the King has chosen a slave in chains as His bride, and instead of bearing the characteristics of our new royal title, isn’t our slave mindset still getting in the way? Don’t we forget how much we have to be thankful for, and forget that we should be training and practicing and growing in those royal, spiritual ways that mark and confirm us as His?
How often have I come to Him in prayer, either forgetting to claim my royal title as a Child of God, or forgetting to be thankful for the blessings that I’ve already received?
How often do we get it backwards and want to lay claim to the blessings that we believe we deserve, and offer a side note of thanks for the royal position that we have received as a Child of God! Is it any different than the drip, drip, drip of a constantly nagging wife?
We should be boldly claiming or Royal title and living our lives as a testimony, as a demonstration of this new position that we hold within the Kingdom of God. That is the greater blessing, for it is eternal.
But how often do we throw our promised crowns to the side, with our wide eyes chasing after the blessings, instead of satisfied with the bridegroom. Oh, we are and adulterous generation, promising our hand to Christ, and chasing after the sparkle and the allure of Babylon and her many enticements! Do we not understand the beauty of our Christ, the glory of Almighty God who loves us? Are we so easily distracted by the wedding gifts that are to be destroyed in tribute at our final wedding celebration? Have we found them lovely and forgotten what matters most?
How many of us daily name and claim Christ as our Lord and Savior as our Lord and Savior and mean it in our hearts, thankful for the price paid? Versus how many times do we rub the genie lamp asking God to give us something, to make it easier, to provide us with things that we don’t have?
Now I do believe that we should lay our cats upon the Lord, but what we are desiring is a clear testimony to what our hearts desire most. And we aren’t meant to desire earthly things most, we are supposed to love God with our every fiber.
Matthew 22:37-38 ESV
And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.
How seldom are we praying, asking that we can love Him more?
How often are we praying asking for things?
Know your desires, and you will uncover the true state of your heart.
So what are we praying for today? What do we desire?
Is it more things? Or is it more God?
Luke 16:13 ESV
No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”
Let’s examine ourselves closely, friends. Let’s don’t let this old man trick us, nor let our hearts deceive us.
We need to know ourselves.
Are we the grateful and faithful bride?
Or are we the nagging and ungrateful ones that will be standing outside the door, with our drip, drip, dripping of tears?
Matthew 25:1-13 ESV
“Then the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a cry, ‘Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise answered, saying, ‘Since there will not be enough for us and for you, go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves.’ And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut. Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ But he answered, ‘Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.’ Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.
Are we grateful?
Are we prepared?
Make preparations, friends.
Here is the bridegroom, Jesus Christ. I’m calling you out to meet Him.
If you do not know Christ as your Lord and Savior, if your life is not surrendered to Him, there is no better time than now. If you feel the tug on your heart, if you hear His still, quiet voice ushering you to come home into His arms, pray to Him right now. Ask Him to come into your life and to be your Lord and Savior. I’d suggest that you start reading the book of John in the Bible. Read it all the way through, and you will know the Spirit, the Good News of the gospel of Jesus Christ. You will have many questions, but you will also begin to find many answers and guidance. Surround yourself with others that are seeking Christ, and feel free to ask me any questions. I do not have all of the answers, but I speak daily to the God who does.
If you find yourself lukewarm in your faith or if you believe that you have fallen away. If you are living in open rebellion against the will of God. I don’t care if you’ve been sprinkled or dunked in the water of this earth’s varying religious practices of baptism – you need to ask yourself if you have ever been born again by the living waters, covered by the blood of Christ, and made a new creation, with the Holy Spirit coming into your life and anointing you with a repentant heart and a new set of desires – a change to your very being.
We should examine ourselves fearfully, because things do not bode well for those who call His name but are not truly His.
Matthew 7:21 ESV
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
Revelation 3:15-19 ESV
“‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.
James 2:14-17 ESV
What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
Matthew 25:31-46 ESV
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’ “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
Galatians 5:16-24 ESV
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
Harold J. Ballinger 