ALARMS

Last week at church, a woman pulled the fire alarm. The piercing noise evacuated all the singles playing volleyball in our church gymnasium to the parking lot. The fire department showed up…and swept through the building finding no fire and no danger. We were given the all clear and allowed back in the gym.

So we entered the building only to discover the alarms were still blaring. The noise lasted over an hour. Our young singles persevered and no one complained. Finally, the alarms were turned off. What a relief.

Then I started wondering in my demented way, “What if we had alarms? Spiritual alarms. What if we had spiritual alarms that everyone could hear around us?”

Can you imagine? The sound would be deafening. For instance-“We have a lustful thought in the gymnasium. Yes! He gave her the up and down!” Do you know how many guys would be running for cover?!

I often think back to that Far Side cartoon with the guy exiting the bathroom into a crowded restaurant. An alarm goes off announcing that he didn’t wash his hands. Yikes.

What if alarms went off when we weren’t being obedient? Take tithing for instance. Our Pastor very rarely talks about money. But when he did could you picture all the alarms going off announcing those in the congregation as NON-TITHERS!

(A word on tithing-I don’t understand how precious people don’t trust God with the income He has allowed them to have. My goodness! He fed 5000 people with a Long John Silver’s value meal. God is concerned with the birds of the air…wouldn’t He be able to provide for us financially. Okay…enough of that.)

We do have alarms. Our alarm is the Holy Spirit who resides in us. 1 Corinthians 6:19 reminds us of that. Within us...our alarm is conviction. The Holy Spirit is dwelling within us and I am His. And the by the grace of God or His infinite wisdom no one around us can hear those alarms when they blare conviction into our minds, souls, and/or ears.

On a normal day, I’m a 911 dispatcher’s nightmare.

Last Sunday, the alarm blared for over an hour because the authorities at the church did not have the proper key to turn it off. But we have keys to turn off the alarm of conviction and avoid sin. Those keys are God’s Word, Prayer, and Grace.

2 Timothy 1:14 reads-

Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.
Once again…I’m called to be authentic in my walk. I've been entrusted with an expensive but free gift of salvation. The title Christian will follow me until I die. How I present myself could influence those to Christ or far from Him. I will fail and I will win. Alarms will be present. But hey…I have the keys and I’m glad when the alarms go off…they are there for a reason.

Comments

Mark said…
Wow, this was great. With your permission I might use this in a lesson one day. I wish I would have read this in February.

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