Toxic Living

" Tremble, you women of ease;

      throw off your complacency.

  Strip off your pretty clothes,

      and put on burlap to show your grief.

   Beat your breasts in sorrow for your bountiful farms

      and your fruitful grapevines.

  For your land will be overgrown with thorns and briers.

      Your joyful homes and happy towns will be gone.

  The palace and the city will be deserted,

      and busy towns will be empty.

   Wild donkeys will frolic and flocks will graze

      in the empty forts and watchtowers

 until at last the Spirit is poured out

      on us from heaven." Isaiah 31:11-15

Watch out for complacency for it is like mold growing in your home and it becomes toxic living.I want to comment on this particular word, and that word is “complacency”.  I think of how mold grows in homes. It starts out with a small spot and if the area is not  treated, it spreads and become larger. Just as in the photo, look at what happened to the mold growth in this home!! Our spiritual lives can be the same way, we can be complacent and take life for granted. We may attend church on weekends, attend mini church and even do our daily devotions. But is that enough to keep the mold away from our homes? No, I believe that it comes down to the heart and how the heart can become hardened (like mold) if we do not spend time in prayer and confessing our sins to the Father and asking forgiveness. Our hearts can become like that moldy home and when we get to the point of having the mold take over, it almost seems like it is too late. What we need is daily cleansing of our homes through prayer. We need to rest in the arms of the Father or we may begin to get offended by others or have our thought life start to have mold grow. Unless we can go to the Father daily, staying in His Word, we cannot prevent the mold growth. Watch out, for without you even knowing, you too can have a home that is contaminated with toxic growth. Just as these verses say, we can get so far away from the Father that the only way to be restored is a good dose of the Holy Spirit. Going to the Father daily is a way of cleansing and restoring the house. It is not an option, but part of maintaining the home through a good power wash from the Holy Spirit and through a heart wash of forgiveness.
Question: Are you living a life of complacency? Do you need some mold removal?