MORNING MANNA 8-1-24
NEVER STAND STILL
”But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.” 2 Pet.3:18
The danger and deceitfulness of drifting is illustrated by the story of the English explorer, William Edward Parry, who took a crew to the Arctic Ocean. They wanted to go farther north to continue their chartings, so they calculated their location by the stars and started a very difficult and treacherous march north. They walked hour upon hour, and finally, totally exhausted, they stopped. Taking their bearings again from the stars, they discovered that they were farther south than they had been when they started. They had been walking on an ice floe that was moving south faster than they were walking north. Similarly, how easy it is to be out with step with God, thinking we are walking with Him, when in fact we are moving away from Him faster than we were supposedly walking toward Him! Ouch! That is the tragedy of drifting from the truth. Will you (or I) awaken one day (“come to our senses”) to find, that all the time we have been moving imperceptibly in the wrong direction?! – Bruce Hurt
C H Spurgeon was right when he said that “The Christian life is very much like climbing a hill of ice. You cannot slide up. You have to cut every step with an ice ax. Only with incessant labor in cutting and chipping can you make any progress. If you want to know how to backslide, leave off going forward. Cease going upward and you will go downward of necessity. You can never stand still.”
The best definition of a backslider that I know of is when a person ceases to grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The Christian life has been likened to riding a bicycle – you have to keep moving or you fall. When trees stop growing they become unstable and are blown over by storm winds. To keep going you have to keep growing! – HDS
David Stone
Lakeway Baptist Church
5801 FM 1960 E
Humble, TX. 77346
