Insight
(Dragonfly Ministries
President, Mary Hamrick)
May 2002
The spring
of the year always finds me in physical labor. This year I have begun
to refinish a few cabinets. The sanding requires a lot of hard work
and elbow grease, but also allows time for my thoughts to concentrate on
Christ and how He puts a lot of elbow grease into making us like Him.
As I’m sanding the old stain off of the cabinets, my heart and mind nestle
on this thought: ‘Sand away the old life so that a new life can be obtained.’
Have
you ever been around an old smelly cabinet? You can sand away the
paint and refinish it so that the outside is beautiful and pleasing to
the eye, but if you don’t deal with the smelly stuff inside, the beautiful
cabinet will not satisfy you. If you don’t empty the smelly contents,
it doesn’t matter how much time, money or effort is put into making the
cabinet beautiful; it will still stink.
Our lives
are that way. We can be very dissatisfied with our lives; tired of
the emptiness, ashamed of the dirtiness of sin, frustrated that we cannot
obtain true happiness, and exhausted at trying to find the answer to what
will really fill our lives with joy. We can apply a new coat of paint
to ourselves to try to find happiness; to look beautiful and successful;
but after all is said and done, the new possessions won’t change our discontentment.
That’s like putting a band-aid on a broken arm. It may appear that
you’ve taken measures to mend the arm, but it’s only an appearance.
Unless the arm is properly set and casted, it will not heal properly.
Unless the smelly contents of our lives are sanded away and we allow God
to whitewash our lives, we will not be satisfied.
Each
of us are made with a place deep within where Jesus is to reside as our
Lord. When we try to live our lives without Jesus, our bodies hunger
for Him and we feel empty. We try to satisfy that emptiness with
possessions, competitiveness, various substances, friends; sometimes our
hearts become filled with resentment and pride because we cannot find anything
to satisfy our inner hunger.
We all
need Jesus. Our spirits hunger for Jesus. He is all we need.
He will satisfy that hunger and fill us with joy. He will sand away
the bitterness and emptiness that we feel and whitewash us
with
His love.
Ask God
to break down the barriers you have built around yourself and your life;
spend some quiet time with Him allowing Him to show you the smelly contents
of your life. And when He has shown you these things, ask Him to
forgive you and to begin sanding them away. If you want true joy
and happiness, ask Him to be your Lord. He will begin to apply finishing
touches that will make you beautiful from within. I Samuel 16:7 says,
“Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
Allow Him to make your heart like His.
If you
would like to ask Jesus into your life but you don’t know where to begin,
you may pray the prayer below; or you may call 1-888-NEEDHIM and a counselor
will pray with you.
Prayer
of Personal Salvation
(from “Pray
for Our Nation” published by Harrison House, Inc; Tulsa, OK)
Dear
Father, I come to You in the name of the Lord Jesus, knowing that as I
call on His name I shall be saved. Your word says that if I
confess His name with my mouth and believe in my heart that You raised
him from the dead, then I shall be saved.
Dear
Father, I truly believe that You raised Jesus Christ from the dead, and
I say right now, “Jesus, You are my Lord.” According to Your Word,
I am saved now. I am Your very own child. Thank You, Father,
for saving me and accepting me as Your very own. –Amen-
What
a difference He can make in your life. He will fill that empty place
with His spirit. Only then will you find true joy. It’s free
for the asking. It’s that easy.
“Ask
and it will be given to you;
Seek
and you will find;
Knock
and the door will be opened to you.”
Matthew
7:7
In Him,
Mary
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