FILLING THE VOID
Mark 7:20-23
"What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person."
This morning I looked out my kitchen windows and I noticed something I hadn't thought of or noticed for a long time. On the edge of my yard I saw the large aspen tree that's been standing there since we bought this property. The very first year that we had this home we gutted the interior and made a long fire to burn the wood. That fire grew very large and it burnded the bark off the side of that tree. Over time I noticed that the bare side of the tree began to rot. Now this morning I noticed that, while the tree has leaves up high, the trunk of the tree is unstable. The fire from years ago has rotted the core of the tree and one big wind could bring it crashing down.
The lives of many people are like that tree, they look healthy on the outside but inside they are hollow and rotten. Many people are slowly decaying, hiding their true self, becoming empty and lifeless inside.
This reminded me of a tree I found on a new lease many years ago. The tree had a large stand built in it's limbs. The trunk of the tree was big enough that two men couldn't reach around it. The giant maple must have been well over 100 years old. I climbed that tree and noticed something on the way into the stand. That tree like the earlier one had rotted and had become hollow and weak. However, someone had formed and poured concrete into the hollow of the tree. It had been filled by something solid. I first saw that tree 30 years ago and it still stands on the same corner of the field today. It still buds each spring and produces beautiful red maple leaves each fall.
Which tree are you? Are you hollow, rotting on the inside from self abuse? Or are you the tree that had been hollow and has been filled will the life giving solid Rock that is Christ Jesus?
In life, most people will die of natural causes, accidents and occasionally murder. Souls on the other hand die of suicide, it could be saved but the owner of the soul allows it to die. We have a choice, live or die.
I've heard it said that all people are born with a God shaped void in their life. The choice we have is to allow that void, that cavity to decay and become weak and it eventually it will cause us to die... Not only an earthly death but an eternal death as well. Or we can fill that void with what fits perfectly into it. This God shaped void needs to be filled with God, the Rock that gives life eternal.
Again, we have a choice. Fill the hollow void and save your soul, choose life.
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