Laziness

Today I listened to a sermon by Joshua Harris called "Do Not Be Slothful in Zeal." He started out by sharing a story from the Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair.

The story is about a boy named Eustace and a girl named Jill, who meet up with a creature called a marsh-wiggle, whose name is Puddleglum. Their story is about the adventures they have on their way to save Prince Rilian from a witch. This witch is the ruler of a colony that lives underground.

Eustace, Jill, and Puddleglum had finally made it into the underground city and had freed the prince, when the witch comes in and catches them. She lights a magic fire on the ground and begins to play a harp. While playing, she begins to speak to them and tell them things that weaken their hearts. She tells them that there is no other world above the ground. That there is no hope.

When everything seems lost, Puddleglum the faithful companion musters all the strength he has and marches over to the fire and, with his bare feet, stamps it out.

Puddleglum is a great example of fighting the temptation of laziness in zeal. They had rescued the prince, the job that Aslan had sent them to do, but then they were tempted to give up. They were tempted to lose their hope and faith in Aslan. But Puddleglum fought. He gave everything he had to fight against this temptation. This act showed his reliance on and hope in Aslan.

So often this can happen in our own lives. We are passionate for God. We want to serve Him. We want to love Him. But then we are tempted to slack in our quiet times. To zone out on Sunday mornings. To forget God throughout the day. Satan wants us to forget God. But the reality is that we cannot survive without God; just like Puddleglum knew he could not live without Aslan. He saw the dangers of those lies and he did whatever it took to destroy them, even at the cost of burning his feet.

Christ is another example; the ultimate example. He died on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins. He knows what it is like to live without God when He died for our sins, and yet he still did it because he loved us. He paid the worst price to destroy sin forever. Sin is dangerous. It's dangerous, because it tries to lure us away from God.

And maybe the temptations aren't sinful. Joshua mentioned things like spending too much time with earthly things instead of heavenly. How much time do I spend on facebook compared to God's word? What is slowly working its way up on my priorities list? Is it reading my Bible or hours of Halo? How do I spend my time?

2 Timothy 4:1-5 - "I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry."

We must be alert!We must preach to ourselves!Temptation is everywhere and it never takes a break, so we must never take a break from teaching ourselves. We cannot let the world take away our zeal for serving God and the only way we can do that is through God's help.

I know that I am terrible at this. I want to relax and enjoy life, but I can't live that life anymore. I want to serve God, but I am constantly tempted to be lazy.

Dear Lord, I pray that you would make me more faithful to you. Protect me when I am tempted to forget about the reason that I live. Be my sheild when I am tempt to relax in my service to you. Lord, I pray that I would fight to the last breathe to avoid temptation. I pray that I wouldn't just see temptation ahead and keep going and kinda shuffle around it. Lord, I pray that I would turn around and run as fast as I can in the opposite direction. I can only do this through your strength, and because you have saved me and called me your own. Thank you. Amen.