DETRIMENTAL DELAYS

When we delay doing the right thing, isn’t that a form of disbelief? Does not our procrastination
suggest that the procrastinator ofttimes foresees no immediate or painful consequences? During their formative years I used to tell my three children that DELAYED obedience is a form of DISobedience. My goal as their loving mother was to teach them the inherent dangers of procrastination—not only in completing assignments, but in all of life.

It’s a problem that is much amplified in the news these days. Certainly, most of us live with a heightened awareness of the detrimental consequences that our own delayed repentance visits upon us as God’s people. Chronic carnality that goes unaddressed causes much disunity within God’s family;  He, being perfectly holy, is repelled by it! Of course, Satan delights in it because he understands better than many Christians how the twin evils of carnality and disunity, thriving under the banner of delayed repentance, defeat God’s purposes in this world. These things simply ought not to be!

To delay dealing decisively each day with our besetting sins, such as unforgiveness, a contentious, and/or hypercritical spirit, petty envies and jealousies, selfish ambition—or ANY of those fleshly works listed in Galatians 5:19-21—is to court serious repercussions for us spiritually and relationally. Let us make this a year to become more serious than we’ve ever been in calling our individual sins what God calls them and cease tolerating and excusing them within ourselves! The day is coming when each of us will stand before the Lord of Glory and give an account of the deeds we’ve done (and sinful attitudes we’ve accepted) while in the body [Romans 14:12]. Don’t delay, but mortify them each day!

PRAYER: Dear Father, help us to daily remember in the course of our busy-ness that apart from You we can do nothing. This applies no less to having a renewed heart for repentance of our besetting sins; these transgressions, we must never forget, are what sent Jesus our Lord to Calvary. Thank You, in Jesus’ name. Amen!
By Sis. Denise Diggs