Faithbase

Hey folks, this is a tree sapling for those of you who know what plants look like. I am NOT the green thumb. This is my third year in this home and as I've been taking care of my yard, as I've seen these, I have just tended to cut them off at the root and you know when they're this big it's no problem at all. But if I just let them go, they tend to grow back and every year they grow back a little bit stronger and a little bit faster and this it would be no problem. This little guy, I could pull this thing right out of my yard, but something that's bigger and grows faster suddenly takes a lot more effort to uproot. Everything that we've talked about up to this point, envy, pride, boasting, even being quick to anger, these things are are just little tree saplings and they may seem actually pretty easy to uproot from our lives if we take care of them right away. But if we don't, if we ignore them and if we let them go, they tend to get overgrown. Let me show you what I'm talking about. Alright guys, this is what I'm talking about. Are you ready? This sucker is taller than I am. I've let this guy go for probably three years. I've been cutting it off at grass level and it has taken root. As you can see, it is a happy little guy. He's doing his thing. This, this is what happens when we let anti-loves take root and we do not take care of them and get rid of them. Okay, this is not good. This guy, if you were to walk into my yard, might even say, hey it looks like it belongs in your yard, but it actually doesn't. It is not a part of the landscape that it ought to be. It's invasive. Okay, this comes back to our phrase for the day. Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing. And this is translated in a lot of different ways. Evil, injustice, unrighteousness, all of these apply. And can you imagine rejoicing at something that makes the Lord weep? Like the Lord, the Lord weeps at sin. And when, if we were to actually rejoice at something like this, we must be, our vision must be completely clouded, right? We might think, oh that's a part of the landscape, but it's actually not supposed to be there. We're gonna need something else. We're gonna need to look at truth, and we'll talk about that tomorrow, but I want you to think about today, do you have someone in your life, maybe it's a pastor you watch online, maybe it's a pastor that you attend their church, maybe it's a close friend, someone who can speak truth to you that you will really listen beyond these things that you hold on to. Have you been nursing envy against someone? For so long that it is clouded the way that you see them. Have you been so prideful in a certain area of your life that it has taken root, and now it just looks like the normal part of the landscape? Find that mentor, ask them, is there something in my life that that I really need to get rid of, that I just think is no big deal, or that I've thought that way at least for some time? This is gonna take some some practice and some effort. This is not no big deal. I want you to really ask the Lord about this, and if there might be something here that you should have gotten rid of a long time ago, and it's time. God bless you.