LAST OF HE HARVEST
Today's reading: 2 Timothy 3-4

Our garden is on its last leg. The cucumbers have been tilled under. The zinnia, who put on the most beautiful of shows, have been picked over, seed heads saved and remaining plants plowed under. The beets are long gone, pickled and canned for winter dinners. The tomato plants are still green and growing, but producing smaller and fewer tomatoes. Fruit production is what tells us the gardening season is over. What's grown has been eaten, frozen or canned. What's left if not producing is cut down, raked up and re-introduced back into the dirt for next year.

Same is true of the Christian.

"They act as if they are religious, but they reject the power that could make them godly..." 2 Timothy 3:5 NLT

Knowing the correct church words, having a designated pew, possessing a twelve-year collection of church bulletins and being on 4 out of 5 church committes do not make you godly...the fruit you're producing does. Having assorted Bible covers, various translations and several Bible marking pens do nothing more than make you a collector of Bible paraphenalia...applying the truth of the Word brings about a bumper crop of godly character.

Are you and I allowing God's power to work in our lives to produce a harvest of righteousness? Are we walking closely enough to Him that His ways, His demeanor, His thoughts rub off on us? Are we assuming that what we participate in, or don't, is what makes us like Christ?

At this time of the year, and throughout, God's looking at the harvest.