I was sitting here this morning, having finished my Devotions and I began to reminisce about when I was a small child. Life was very simple then. As I look back from today, innocence was everywhere! We had all the four seasons: spring, summer, fall and winter. We had rainy days and dry days and even some days, when the sun was bright in the sky and the temperature hovered around 105 degrees F. HOT! I mean it was so hot you could fry an egg on the concrete. All you needed was a little butter and an egg! We would look across the open plain and watch, as the heat would arise, warbling in the distance─you know what I mean here.
Oh, and all those Sundays, when we would get dressed up in our Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes and we would be pulling at our collars. It was so hot! The ceiling fans would be set on high and we would all be working toward sitting directly under one of them! I also remember (maybe you do too) those swamp coolers that looked like huge, square, machines hanging from everyone’s windows. Garden hose attached to them and you could hear the water trickling inside and then we would run into the house and stand in front of it and feel the coolness. Oh, what a treasure those were back then, because before that all we had were fans.
On occasion my wife and I would recall those hot days and we remembered how the ice cream man was our only true friend. For a nickel, my wife could get her Dreamsicle and I could have my run-of-the-mill cherry flavored Popsicle. For the next ten minutes all was well on earth and our street was quiet — as we kids would settle under a shade tree and enjoy our treats. What happened to those days…and what happened to those ways
When it was really hot, you picked up the garden hose and got a cool drink of water. If you fell off your bike, Merthiolate was applied and a band-aid and off you would go again playing outside until it was dark, playing hide-and-go-seek in the late evening and catching lightning bugs in a jar. We hurt ourselves, but we learned how to get up and dust ourselves off and go at it again. When did we loose our innocence? When did the ice-cream man become a child molester or a criminal, unable to get a better paying job, after prison? What ever happened to moms being home and watching all the kids, ‘till dad came home from work? What happened to all those shows like, “Gunsmoke” on Saturday nights? If I had to explain it, it would be, “We gave away our innocence!”
“Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings” (Jeremiah 17:7-10, emphasis added).
We gave away our innocence to Satan and his ilk! We have too many ways to SIN! Technology has made it easier for us to SIN in relative peace and seclusion, but it is still SIN nonetheless! God does not need to watch us commit SIN, HE already knows we will SIN because HE already KNOWS the intent of our hearts long before we ever SIN, long before we were ever knit together in our mothers womb! As a matter of fact, God knew each and everyone of us before HE ever created the universe.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.” (Ephesians 1:3-6, emphasis added).
We have made everything easier for ourselves and we have nothing to show for all our effort. It’s sort of like playing a 3D game. Nowdays, you can spend hour upon hour, fight like the dickens and then quit, walk away from the computer, having done nothing! Not one single thing has been done that would advance you or anyone else in any regard. You have simply wasted time. Now taking into account you and I will get only 70-80 years on this little planet, was that wasted time worth it?
Come on now, think on this for a moment: How many hours would you say, you spend on something that will amount to nothing, but expended time and effort…for nothing? All you have accomplished is to waste that amount of time and then get to SUBTRACT it from your 70-80 years…right? And so, somehow…I’m crazy for this info?
“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6).
Brothers and sisters, we as parents are responsible for how our children grow and learn and obviously…there are a lot of parents that have dropped the ball here! Oh, but we are so educated and intelligent! Have you ever heard of “educated” idiots? Well let me say, they are everywhere now days, everywhere you look and then you wonder why our lives are the way they are? Let’s back the boat up here a little, we need to reassess WHO has forgotten whom, who has left whom out in the open…We…the parents…have forgotten to bring up our children…according to the Word of God!
I know…I know…how can I sit here and make accusations of others? I am using the Word of God and HE…is telling you and me…WHO is responsible! That is the exact point! That is, as many like to say, “Where the rubber meets the road.” Go ahead and say what you will, but the time and day is coming when each of us will face Jesus Christ and we will have to give an accounting to HIM…for what we have done and for what we haven’t done! Trust me on this, no one is going to get away with anything…God knows everything!
Having said that, how will you respond…when HE looks into your eyes? WOW…what a concept to have to ponder!
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life”(John 3:16).