Bring on the Guava!

Scripture Reading: 2 Corinthians 1:18-22

Today's Treasure: "But as surely as our God is faithful, our message to you is not 'Yes' and 'No'" (2 Corinthians 1:18).

I grew up thinking Christianity and going to church were all about what we "didn't do." Living a life with the sheer purpose of abstaining from evil wasn't fun or fulfilling. The serpent came and beguiled me just as he did Eve and deceived me into thinking that at least I could feel alive if I did what I wasn't supposed to do. I think back on some of my young years and wonder how I made it without someone snatching me bald-headed. My family lived across the street from the high school when I was in elementary school. My older sister and I were such a handful that when we wanted to play school, we broke into the high school to do it. Just the fact that it was locked made Gay and me want to break in.

Think about this with me: only one tree in the entire Garden was forbidden to Adam and Eve. Instead of surveying everything God had given her and marveling, All of this! the serpent seduced Eve into thinking, Perhaps I'd rather trade all this in for the one thing God told me to avoid. He could be holding out on me .

Believer, the serpent has sold us such a lie, and we have paid dearly for it. In comparison to all we've been given to enjoy in our earthly life with Christ, what we've been called to avoid is like one measly tree in the whole garden. The trouble is, we don't even begin to eat the fruit of the endless groves in our garden. Ephesians 1:3 says we have every spiritual blessing in Christ!

We reach for the forbidden trees because we're getting a little bored with a steady diet of nothing but apples and bananas. Some of us haven't widened our spiritual horizons in decades. We are doing the same exact things to fuel our Christian faith that we did years ago, and we're in a rut. A spiritual rut is fertile ground for seduction by the enemy. It's time to wake up and smell the guava! We haven't made it to the mangoes and papayas yet. When you and I start taking Christ up on all he made possible for us, we will be so much happier in our faith that abstaining from evil will not seem nearly so sacrificial.

Abstaining from evil used to be hard for me in my adolescent years, and no wonder it was! An unsatisfied soul, and empty abyss, is nothing but a stronghold waiting to happen. When we learn to really enjoy our God and His endless benefits, the unhealthy need for carnal pleasures is diffused. The need has already been met just as it was meant to be. Nothing will make you happier on a more consistent basis than a full-bore, flood-stage relationship with Jesus Christ.

Lord, thank you that no matter how many promises you have made, they are "Yes" in Christ according to 2 Corinthians 1:20. Help me broaden my spiritual horizons and take you up on the offer of every spiritual blessing in Christ. For your glory, Lord, I ask that you diffuse my appetite for carnality and replace it for a hunger and thirst for you!

Adapted from When Godly People Do Ungodly Things , by Beth Moore, pages 106-107. Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2002. Used by permission.