It’s a Monday morning, and the start of a new week.
A normal day for me would start with making breakfast after I wake up, and getting ready for work. I’m thinking about the day ahead, about what needs to be done at work, and I’m just too happy when the end of the workday comes and I can go home. I make supper, and make sure the house is clean and tidy before I go to bed. A whole day has gone by, and I have been happy and cheerful, kind to others, and got a lot of work done.
I can look back on the day and feel satisfied that I had a “productive” day.
What is a spiritually productive day?
But what about my spiritual life? If I haven’t given myself any spiritual food or been awake to what the Spirit wants to tell me, did I then have a spiritually productive day? Sure, I got a lot of work done, but have I made any progress spiritually?
To be spiritually productive means that we get more of the fruit of the Spirit, and become more like Christ (Romans 8:29). It means that we get rid of more of the sin that lives in us.
We all are born with a sinful nature, that is the reason why we are being tempted (James 1:14). But the intention is that we overcome the sin we are tempted to! To be irritated with someone, to be frustrated when things don’t happen the way we want them to, being impatient - these sins may seem unimportant, but they are sins and we have to learn to overcome them.
If we think that we can go through a whole day and not be tempted at all, then that means that we are simply not awake. If we don’t even see when we are tempted, it’s because we are not spiritually awake. This is very serious! How can we become free from the sin in our nature if we don’t see anything to cleanse ourselves from?
If that is the case we have become satisfied with the way we are, and we no longer have a longing in our heart, we no longer have a need in our life to stop living according to our sinful natural lusts and desires (1 Peter 4:1-2) so that we can become more like Christ. We have no real hatred of sin. This is very dangerous. We become self-satisfied because we do not see sin as so very sinful. (Romans 7:13.)
I have to consciously work
It’s not that we walk around thinking, “I am satisfied with the way that I am and no longer need to cleanse myself,” but it’s more that we don’t notice any more when the Spirit speaks to us, and we don’t see that we had a chance to humble ourselves in a situation for example. If we are satisfied with our spiritual state, then how can we make progress? We can’t make progress if we don’t see a need for it.
We are not born with perfect patience, with the ability to easily forgive others, etc. But with God’s grace we can become like that. We can actually get godly nature! But we can only come to godly nature if we constantly cleanse ourselves from what we see coming up from our sinful human nature. (2 Peter 1:2-4.) We have to consciously work on our salvation at all times. (Philippians 2:12.)
We need to make time to read our Bible, to fill ourselves with God’s Word, for that is where we get the help that we can use in our situations. We need to pray for ourselves and pray for others so that we don’t walk around in the emptiness of our own mind, thinking about worthless things. (Ephesians 4:17.) We can build up the others through prayer.
In Hebrews 3:15 (NLT) it is written: “Remember what it says: ‘Today when you hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts as Israel did when they rebelled.’” So when we hear God’s voice speaking to us to do something, we have to be quick to do it. If we stop listening or keep putting off what we know we should do or say, then God stops speaking to us and we become deaf to the Spirit’s voice. We need to pray to really have our eyes open to the situations and temptations of the day, so that we can be quick to overcome when we are tempted.
Then we can say we’ve really had a productive day!
