I watched with excitement as my Wake Forest football team beat Duke in today's season finale (to finish 5-7 no less) and I also groaned as my Wake Forest basketball team lost tonight to William and Mary in basketball, a team that should never really challenge the Deacons. If you know me, you know that I am fairly passionate about Wake Forest sports and that I am also a glutton for punishment.
As excitable as I am for sports, I'm afraid the same can't always be said for my response to Jesus. Oh yes, He is my Lord and my Savior and I have surrendered my life to Him, yet the radical change that He has wrought in my heart often elicits little more than a whimper in my life. Galatians 5:22 tells us that one of the fruits of the Spirit is joy, yet I find that I often neither experience nor exhibit much joy in my everyday life. I am a zealous defender of God's truth and when I preach I do so with God's truth as my sole focus, yet the basic joy of knowing Christ and being redeemed by His blood eludes much of my daily life.
In 2 Peter 2 the apostle Peter addresses false teachers and the judgment that they will surely face. At the end of that chapter in verse 23 he writes regarding these false teachers, "Is has happened to them according to the true proverb: A dog returns to its own vomit, and, 'a sow, after washing itself, wallows in the mud.'" I'm no false teacher but I do relate to what it feels like to go back to what life used to be before I met Jesus. When I live a life that is weak on joy then I am a dog licking its own vomit and a pig frolicking in the mud.
I don't want to go down as one of those guys who knew God's Word and spent his life teaching it to others yet seemed so poorly affected by it. Allowing the Spirit to move in my life is a choice I must make everyday, and this includes letting go of my own agendas. Joy comes when I live in the continuous realization that I am redeemed by King Jesus and that my life can't and won't ever be the same. I can get excited about that.
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