It is surely a slow fade when we give ourselves away, but what are we giving ourselves to? That is the most important question. I want to talk about 2 different kinds of slow fades.
The first slow fade is when we allow things to creep into our hearts and minds that take us away from His perfect will, His understanding, His ways. There are so many little things that can draw us away.
"Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines," Song of Solomon 2:15
We think of all the big, obvious sins, but they don’t start as big sins. My brother’s descend into a life of addictions and bad choices started with small choices. I called him to see if he would be bold enough and brave enough (since he’s still struggling to get his life together) to tell me if he remembers the very first steps of this influence. He said, without hesitation, that it was music. He said you get comfortable with the music of this world first and it leads to others things. It’s all very gradual. He says once you’ve felt the power of God, the Holy Ghost up & down your spine and then you encounter this other music and begin to participate and let it into your life, mind, heart… and you feel the goosepump feeling again, you are actually entertaining the spirit of this world… dancing before the prince of the powers of darkness.
Ephesians 2:2 “Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:”
From there, he tried skoal, then smoking, drinking… each one a step deeper into the world of darkness. Statistics have shown that people who abuse drugs and alcohol started with smoking. They didn’t start with the intention of abusing drugs.
I’ve also watched people walk away from church and from God and never come back… sometimes leaving straight from choir or some other ministry and delve into a life of deep darkness. You look at that and say, how did that happen? Did they just jump up one day & decide to go back to sin? No! At some point prayer was skipped a time or two… not given top priority… hurt feelings were not dealt with… bitterness took a small root and began to grow. Maybe the “small fox” for them was envy… wondering why so & so was chosen for a ministry instead of me… or sang a solo instead of me. Maybe the small fox was pride. Perhaps God blessed them and showed them favor and they began to become lifted up within themselves. Only prayer can fix these things. Maybe the fox was evil speaking… our words are so important. Out of the abundance of our heart, our mouths speak. We better check our heart in at the cross EVERY DAY!
...TO BE CONTINUED...
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