f we are really serious about making our front lawn nice and green and clean looking, we have to get rid of the weeds that will grow up and choke out the grass. If we keep having spots where weeds continue to grow up and all we do is grab our weed trimmer and trim them back a bit, they will continue to keep growing back to where they were. We have to get rid of them by pulling them out at the roots, or killing them with some kind of weed killer formula or something – it takes work and effort, but the end result if we get rid of them, and plant new grass seed in their place is, we have a nice clean looking refreshing lawn.
The same is true with our lives as Christians. We can’t just trim back the things that are choking our lives as Christians, we HAVE to GET RID of them! If we just stop doing them for a day or a week, and then slowly let them come back into our lives – we’ve done no good. The Word of God doesn’t instruct us to don’t do “as much” evil as you used to do…NO it says “Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good…” (Isaiah 1:16-17), and in Psalm 34:14, “Turn away from evil and do good…”
And, remember – the word “evil” simply means “bad things”….things that are hurting and destroying our lives as a Christian. Just like weeds that grow up and choke out the good grass, evil, if left to fester in our lives and continue to grow – WILL choke out the good that we should be doing. Sure, it’s a LOT easier to just let the weeds grow, it takes work and effort to get rid of them, but how much nicer it is without them – and that’s true for us as a Christian. YES, it DOES take effort to get rid of some things that we’ve allowed to continue growing in our lives, but it’s WORTH the effort!
Stop doing WRONG, and REPLACE it with what is RIGHT!