Undiluted

Undiluted

“Your silver has become dross, your

choice wine is diluted with water.”

                                  Isaiah 1:22

A well-known ploy by unscrupulous shopkeepers has often been to water down the wine or drink being served in an attempt to make it go farther and reap a greater profit. The result was a diluted product not worth the price being paid, not representing the quality or true value of the product involved. From orange juice served with breakfast to the maple syrup we use on our waffles, the diluting of something we enjoy still goes on today.

From that practice, a phrase has arisen “watering down the wine” that is used in many applications: a political position may be watered down to make it more acceptable to the voting public, a teaching may be watered down to make it easier to grasp, and standards are too often watered down to avoid controversy, trouble, and rejection. Many have said that, in our day, even the gospel is being watered down to make it more palatable to others, easier to respond to, and less offensive to those not wanting to follow the demands of the narrow road.

And so when God spoke through Isaiah the words, “your choice wine is diluted with water,” the message was pretty clear. What God had intended for them to enjoy was being watered down by compromise and self-serving interests that denied much of what God had desired for their lives. In our day, the purity of the joy God offers His children has been watered down to now take into account circumstances that affect our every mood and attitude. The peace that passes all understanding has been diluted by our need to be in control, and standards of holiness, that are so precious to God, have been watered down by the excuse “everyone else is doing it.” The list of watered down areas of Christian life unfortunately includes so much more.

And while we may settle for less than God’s best at the breakfast table, we have to seriously consider if anything is worth forfeiting “the choice vine” that God has promised to those who walk in His ways. Maybe it’s time to hold out for something better in your life, for a version of God’s blessing and favor that, no matter the cost, is undiluted and pure, strong and alive. If the cost is faithfulness in everything from giving  to your job to your marriage, God’s best is more than worth it. If the price is honesty, sacrifice or perseverance, the reward will so far exceed what God asks as to not compare. Begin today to hold out for a Christianity and a faith that is strong, vibrant and powerful, a faith worth following, you’ll be glad you did.

God Bless,
Pastor Joe
Gateway Church

Lying Dormant

Lying Dormant

Looking at our garden in the cold of winter, seeing the barren ground and the signs of a previous year’s effort, has always reminded me of the potential that lies within each of us. Every year, at the first hint of warmer temperatures, seeds that were buried under the snow and ice of winter, zucchini, pumpkin and tomatoes to name a few, snap out of their dormancy and burst forth to new life. In the same way, on the inside of so many men and women of God are talents and gifting lying dormant, waiting to be revived, waiting to be stirred by the Holy Spirit, and break forth and bear fruit for the Lord. A few verses in the Book of Job communicate so well a message of hope in our future:

“At least there is hope for a tree: if it is cut down,
it will sprout again, and its new shoots will not fail.
Its roots may grow old in the ground
and its stump die in the soil,
yet at the scent of water it will bud
and put forth shoots like a plant.”
                                           Job 14:7-9

Our churches are filled with “ordinary and unschooled” men and women of God, no different from those who turned the world upside down in the early church. But far too often, for one reason or another, they are lying dormant, with unrealized potential of incredible magnitude, waiting to be energized by hope and made alive by a fresh touch of the Holy Spirit. Job described the budding that came forth at just the scent of water; a process I liken to a believer being filled with a hope for their future that has been sadly missing. But notice that Job doesn’t talk about the rain of heaven causing the new growth but only the scent of water, making it clear just how close the breakthrough might be and how open and ready so many are to being used for His glory.

My prayer for the coming year is that the dormant among us will come alive as God touches them afresh, and that the dry bones of Ezekiel, those who have lost hope and vision, will come back to life as God stirs their hearts and fills them with His Holy Spirit. If that is you, get ready for “the scent of water” that God is about to send your way. Be on the lookout for a word that is tailor-made for you, sent from heaven for the sole purpose of awakening you to all that God has planned and purposed for your life.

God Bless
Pastor Joe
Gateway Church