Dead Heading
July 7
Each summer I buy at least one petunia plant for the purpose of "dead heading." As I pluck off each dead bloom, I ask the Lord to pluck out the sinful ways in me! Putting the phrase get rid of in Biblegateway I game up with two passages which have really spoken to me today.
In Ephesians 4:19-24 we read that "The Old Way Has to Go." It's an intentional process on our part.
And so I insist-and God backs me up on this-that there be no going along with the crowd, the empty-headed, mindless crowd. They've refused for so long to deal with God that they've lost touch not only with God but with reality itself. they can't think straight anymore. Feeling no pain, they let themselves go in sexual obsession, addicted to every sort of perversion.
But that's no life for you. You learned Christ! My assumption is that you have paid careful attention to him, been well instructed in the truth precisely as we have it in Jesus. Since, then, we do not have the excuse of ignorance, everything-and I do mean everything-connected with that old way of life has to go. It's rotten through and through. Get rid of it! And then take on an entirely new way of life-a God-fashioned life, a life renewed from the inside and working itself into your conduct as God accurately reproduces his character in you.
This next passage really clarifies something for me concerning the difference in...making a practice of sin and those who are repentant and seek forgiveness for sin, desiring change.
All who indulge in a sinful life are dangerously lawless for sin is a major disruption of God's order. Surely you know that Christ showed up in order to get rid of sin. There is no sin in him, and sin is not part of his program. No one who lives deeply in Christ makes a practice of sin. None of those who do practice sin have taken a good look at Christ. They've got him all backward. 1 John 3:4-6
