Beth Moore tells a story in one of her lessons that illustrates the need to replace the bad with the good. There was a woman who had a hideous green chair. It was worn and ugly. She hated it! Every time she walked by it, she just got more and more frustrated. One day, she had enough. She dragged the chair out to the trash for the trash man to pick up. For days she would walk by the spot where the green chair once was and notice the big empty space. She didn’t have the money at that point to buy a new chair. The space seemed so vast. It didn’t seem right. After a few days, she went out to the trash heap and dragged the chair back into the house to its place of honor. She hated the empty space more than she hated the chair.
There are many things we hate in our life; our sin, our habits, our activities, etc. We want them done away with. Sometimes, we make a commitment to rid them out of our life. However, if we do not put good things in their place, we will soon drag them back into to their original position. Let’s say you decide to give up an activity you do every Friday night. You have determined it is not glorifying to God and causes you to sin. Your spirit hates it. You need to find a positive activity to do every Friday night in its place. If you don’t and you sit at home bored every Friday night, you will one day hate your boredom so much you will go back to doing the activity you didn't want anymore.
Do you have a green chair in your life? Something you hate? Are you ready to drag it to the trash? What are you going to put in its place? If you end up hating the empty space more than the chair, the ugly green chair will be back in your life before you know it!
So throw all spoiled virtue and cancerous evil in the garbage. In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life.
James 1:21
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