One of the easiest things to do in our walk with Jesus Christ is to get lazy, to get too busy with life in this world, to get disappointed about things, or to even get discouraged and slowly give up spending time with God each day, slowly give up seeking Him with all our hearts, and slowly go back to the way we used to live and act.
Suppose we spend a couple of hours cleaning our kitchen and it’s spotless. And so, then we eat lunch. Rather than putting the dirty dishes in the dishwasher or sink, we just stack them on the counter. Well, we think “all I did was use one cup and a plate” it’s not going to look too bad leaving that on the counter for now. So, then we come down later and cook and eat dinner, again we just stack the dirty dishes on the counter or leave the pots and pans on the stove. And we keep doing that for a week. At the end of the week, our kitchen is going to be filthy again.
Now, we could say, “But…I cleaned it spotless last week!” It doesn’t matter…we kept letting the dirty dishes and stuff pile up in it, and now it’s no longer spotless. We could simply make the argument that “one plate a day, or one a couple of cups and some silverware isn’t going to hurt anything, and it might not at first – but it will slowly add up as we put more dirty cups and plates and stuff on the counter. If we would simply clean the dishes and get rid of the dirt immediately, it would stay clean.
The same is true with our lives – we have to CONSTANTLY be cleaning them and keeping up with the job. We have to daily refresh our minds by spending time in God’s Word and focusing on Him. We can’t allow this world to distract us. We can’t allow ourselves to get so lazy that we just start slowly letting stuff pile up, causing us to drift back to the world, slowly allowing more and more darkness back in.
The Apostle Paul likened it to a race. He said in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air; but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.”