Strongholds

God has not only a wonderful sense of beauty but also a great sense of humour: don’t you just love this little “green man” here with his arms stretched out to you? He could have come straight out of some science fiction movie. Of course God is very versatile too; just look at this next flower, designed to brighten up our environment.

To change the subject a little bit, the third photo is one that most gardeners are familiar with: Clover growing in the lawn.  That is now quite a large patch of clover and will take a lot of work if the gardener wants to eliminate it as it would have dropped a considerable amount of seed into that soil and as they say “one year’s seeding means seven years weeding”. If, on the other hand, the first plant had been pulled out when it first appeared this problem would never have occurred.

When referring to negative things like this,  that take over

in our lives, the Bible refers to them as potential “Strongholds” (2 Cor. 10:4&5) and warns us that we must “nip them in the bud” as soon as they confront us, this applies to anger, dishonesty, immorality, selfishness, resentment or whatever, otherwise they become sins and undermine us as that clover is undermining the lawn.

The day after I took the first photo of the lawn, the gardener came and mowed it as you see in the second photo. But that solved nothing as it was the equivalent of giving it a haircut and if he keeps doing that it will take over the entire lawn in a few years. The only answer is for him to either dig it out or spray it and repeat the process each year as new seedlings germinate.

We have all been guilty of allowing “weeds” of bad behaviour, (like I mentioned above), to take hold in our lives at some stage because that is how we are, so the Bible sums it up by saying: “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God”(Romans 3:23). We can of course make a “New Year’s Resolution” to change our ways but that is just the equivalent of “mowing the lawn” which can give a good impression for a while but will not delete the problem. So I am sorry to say that we are stuck with the problem, and what a problem! The Bible says: “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). That “death” referred to there is very nasty, and really means that our Souls (the real us), will suffer eternal separation from God in a dreadful environment.  

Thankfully the thought of us suffering like that so horrified God that He arranged for Jesus to come and be crucified for all our sin and “cleanse us from all sin” (1 John 1:7) so that we can be free to go and be with Him in Heaven when our time comes. Our part of the bargain is for us to “Believe on the Lord Jesus”, repent of our sin and endeavour to follow His ways in future, as outlined in the New Testament. Which is quite simple but challenging, and is the equivalent of the gardener digging out all that clover and helping us to maintain a lovely clean lawn in future by not allowing clover plants to establish themselves and form “strongholds”(Ephesians 4:26 & 27). You can guarantee that Satan will never stop trying to put temptations to sin in our path though, and they will always look attractive on the surface.

A lady was trying on a dress that she could not afford and that would be a financial burden on her. The temptation to buy it was great until she remembered the words Jesus said when he was tempted, so she quoted them out loud: “Get thee behind me Satan”, and a moment later she was quite sure that she heard a voice behind her say: “It looks good from the back too”.

Best wishes as you think all that through, if you haven’t already done so.    Regards,     Tom.