Ecclesiastes 10:10 If the ax is dull, And one does not sharpen the edge, Then he must use more strength; But wisdom brings success.
When I was younger I used to take an ax and cut up firewood from the woods behind our house. The one thing I always did was sharpen my ax! A dull ax meant harder work chopping through fallen trees. The sharper the ax the less effort and energy required for the task. So I learned early on to sharpen my ax before venturing into the woods, and I saved myself a lot of time and energy. (Besides I was a small kid, growing up, so I needed all the help I could get! 😉 )
I see a lesson here. How many of us are exerting so much energy for the Kingdom, but are working with dull axes? We need to sharpen our spiritual lives, get focused in prayer, and spend deep time in the Word. Then, when we are “out in the woods”, working for the Kingdom our effectiveness will be greatly multiplied because our axes are sharp!
Don’t get so busy that your ax becomes dull. Remember that your devotion to the Lord and His word will sharpen your spiritual life, especially before you start the day. Prioritize your devotional life and watch how your “edge” will cut through the problems, obstacles, and difficult situations, like a hot knife through butter!
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]An aging king woke up one day to the realization that should he drop dead, there would be no male in the royal family to take his place. He was the last male in the royal family in a culture where only a male could succeed to the throne – and he was aging. He decided that if he could not give birth to a male, he would adopt a son who then could take his place but he insisted that such an adopted son must be extraordinary in every sense of the word. So he launched a competition in his kingdom, open to all boys, no matter what their background. Ten boys made it to the very top.
For centuries in Ethiopia, there have lived a people we now know as the Falashas. They kept all sorts of Biblical traditions and call themselves Beta Yisrael (House of Israel). As experts began to study the matter, it became clear that these were descendants of the Jewish people who came to Africa in ancient times and intermarried. Unbeknownst to many, a percentage of them became believers in Jesus over the years. Jesus (or Yeshua, as they called Him) became a part of their identity as Jewish people. Many Falashan Jews worshipped Jesus as their Messiah and continued to practice Jewish tradition.
So often in our walks with the Lord, we become focused on what we can see, what we can hear and what we can sense in the physical realm. Like that young man, we focus on the enemy’s attacks around and about us. At times we can get so focused on our physical circumstances that we forget that the Lord has already provided for us the victory!
Why is it that some believers seem to go much deeper in their walk with God than others? I believe it has to do with a desire to pursue God and not to stop until they feel His very presence in their lives. These believers decide not to settle for anything less than a growing, vibrant relationship with God, and God honors that desire for those who seek it.
This pivotal passage of scripture, Isaiah 52 and continuing into Isaiah 53, profiles a suffering servant whom the nation of Israel would not recognize. The spiritual leaders of Yeshua’s (Jesus) day were blinded to the messianic passages which pointed to the messiah’s role as a humble servant and bearer of sins.
A recent study by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and University of California Los Angeles wanted to find out, “if you had to choose between more time and more money, what would it be?” While they found most respondents answered, “more money”, they also found that those who preferred “more time” were generally happier! When I read this article, it reminded me of a story, that I’d like to share.
The Lord spoke to Moses, who led the children of Israel out of Egypt to be desperately cornered with the Red sea before them and Pharaoh’s chariots advancing upon them from behind. Overwhelmed with terror they cry out to Moses, “It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!” Having just miraculously escaped from the miserable life of slavery, and only beginning their new life of freedom, the children of Israel were faced with the most dire threat to their existence.