Fanning the Door

No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. Matthew 6:24

My paternal grandfather was, to put it lightly, a character. Always entertaining, never predictable, his grandchildren loved him because he was like having another child around to play with. But, he had one hard and fast rule: Play inside or outside, but don’t run in and out. When we were all there, there were four of the grandchildren who were all relatively close in age. When we inevitably began to run in and out of the front door, He would look up from whatever he was doing and proclaim, “Quit fanning the door! In or out!” That was usually followed by a explanation of how he wasn’t trying to either heat or cool the neighborhood, depending on the weather. The message was clear: make a choice of where we wanted to play, and stay there.

While my grandfather protected his own interests by making sure that we weren’t wasting his resources, our heavenly father only seeks to help us gain more of His blessings. His desire is to do good and give us a life that is far and away better than we can imagine, but we make that impossible by continuing to straddle the fence. We want the blessings of God while living the life of a sinner. For far too many of us, separating our secular life from our spiritual life has become so natural, that we don’t even realize we’re doing it. After all, we aren’t hurting anybody. Or are we? What damage are we doing by choosing to live a life that neither denies the Lord nor gives Him full reign in our lives? What blessings are we missing by failing to serve Him with our whole hearts?

But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: 2 Peter 2:9

If we consider “inside” to be living in the will of God, and “outside” to be outside the will of God, metaphorically, it’s easy to make some obvious connections. When we’re playing inside, the climate is controlled, all are needs are easily met. Of course, there are some things we shouldn’t do inside that we could do outside, but we’re completely safe. Choosing to live outside means that we are at the mercy of the weather, the bugs, and that there are far fewer things to keep us safe. Outside may seem thrilling at times, but as soon as we’ve skinned our knees or been bitten or stung by bugs, we run to the safety and protection of ‘inside’. Trying to live in both places, spiritually speaking, is a mistake. We need to choose whom we’re going to serve and commit ourselves wholeheartedly to that life.

When we choose to live our secular lives in direct opposition to our spiritual condition, we create a confusing message for the unbelievers in our realm of influence. To them, salvation and trusting in God has very little value if it doesn’t change our behavior. It becomes an oddity, a thing we claim, but obviously are not changed by, so why should they even bother? To have an effect on the unsaved people in our lives, we have to live a life that is set-apart and marked by His grace. We have to be willingly to live our lives for God 100% of the time, not only on Sunday mornings.

We also rob ourselves of the blessings of living a holy life. For me, as I began to work toward reconciling the two aspects of my life, my spiritual life and the natural, the most striking thing I realized was that there was an element of relief that could not be denied. To know that everything in me was working together, removed so much stress from my life. I no longer worried, who would hear, who would see my behavior, and I am free to just be me, 100% of the time. I falter and fail along the way, but I’ve learned to quickly repent and return to my Savior. We can’t allow fear of failure to stop us from seeking to live Holy lives. We won’t get it right, it will be something we forever have to work towards, but is it worth it? Definitely.

If you’re saved, if you’ve submitted your soul to your Savior, consider whether or not you are living a fully surrendered life. We are called to do so. We are made to live in constant connection and worship of our Lord. In Heaven, that process will be perfected, but we should be looking toward and preparing for the ‘rest of our lives’ while we are still living in this sin sick world. We are to different. We are to be an example to the world of just what Christ can do in a sinner’s life. If we are saved, but continue to live the same as unbelievers, how can we do that?

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. Romans 6:12-13

I love these two verses. The best part? “Yield yourselves unto God.” Yield, what an appropriate word. To give way. Some of its synonyms are capitulate, submit, surrender. We fight against that total surrender, and in doing so, we’re fighting against the greatest freedom we could ever imagine. Brothers and sisters, we’ve already learned the peace of surrendering our soul to our Lord, consider now, the freedom of living holy lives… lives that protect our hearts from sinful thoughts and deeds, lives that focus on our Lord and Savior, lives that are slaves only to Him. It may seem like we’d be missing out, but we’ll experience more joy and freedom than we can begin to imagine. Try Him.