A shovel is a useful tool for cleaning up both our own life and backyard and the environment. Only those who do the work will get the life saving benefits.
Genesis 3:17 cursed [is] the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat [of] it all the days of thy life;
And God gave man a shovel… well not really the full story, man had to make the shovel to make the work easier and then he had to dig.
If life were given to you as a free package all wrap up with a bow on it most would leave that nice parcel sitting on the ground and would not accept it. This is the very thing that is happening allover the place today. The western world because of easy and pleasure at the expense of body and soul will not secure the real health and life that Christ wishes to impart.
I’ve had a good life.. what I’m really saying is that I will live as I am though I have blood vessel disease and don’t want to do anything about. If it was about material wealth the story would be much different. There is a strange sleep that has over come the people where they entranced by the media and are indifferent about themselves.
‘That’s too hard.’ If people are given a way to heal 99% of people do not really want to make life saving changes and thus the same applies to salvation- give me a pill and let Christ do all the work.
“Perfection of character cannot be attained when the laws of nature are disregarded”, for this is transgression of the law of God. God’s law is the building block to life. The building of character requires every attention and fibre of the human being. One has to grab their shovel and dig into the hard ground and work and work the ground.
If men were to be saved by being delivered utterly from the flesh just as it is, then Jesus need never have come to the world. If men were to be saved by being delivered from all temptation, and set in a realm of no temptation, then Jesus need not have come into the world. But never, by any such deliverance as that, could man have developed character. Therefore, instead of trying to save men by delivering them utterly from the flesh, just where they were, Jesus came to the world, and put himself IN THE FLESH, just where men are; and met that flesh, JUST AS IT IS, with all its tendencies and desires; and by the divine power which he brought by faith, he “conquered sin in the flesh,” and thus brought to all mankind that divine faith which brings the divine power to man to deliver him from the power of the flesh and the law of sin, just where he is, and to give him assured dominion over the flesh, just as it is. {September 18, 1900 ATJ, ARSH 600.16}
Instead of Jesus’ trying to save men in a way in which they would be limp and characterless, by setting them in a realm of no temptation, he came to man, just where man is, in the midst of all his temptations. Jesus came in the very flesh such as man has; and in that flesh, he met all the temptations known to that flesh, and conquered every one of them; and by that conquest brought victory to every soul in the world. Bless his name. {September 18, 1900 ATJ, ARSH 600.17}
And every soul can have in its fullness that victory, who will receive and keep “the faith of Jesus.” For “this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.” {September 18, 1900 ATJ, ARSH 600.18}
All depends on our union with Christ but we must constantly make the decision to remain with Him- here is the work to which the shovel must be put. It is no easy matter to gain the priceless treasure of of health or eternal life. No one can do this and drift with the current of the world. To resist Satan’s desires is no easy task. It demands a firm hold of the divine nature from beginning to end, or it cannot be done. The senses through which we function including the appetite must be guarded.
“Reformatory action is always attended with loss, sacrifice, and peril. It always rebukes love of ease, selfish interests, and lustful ambition. It is no easy matter to correct habits once formed.”
because deep down we treasure and love something that gratifies the taste but is soul and health destroying we find it hard to let go.
In making clean we build life and the environment and this cleaning action is made available through the word. John 15:3 Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you and Christ being the word john 1:1 and we engrafted to the vine John 15:1 when we abide in that word. The command to follow tests the thoughts and feelings.
True environmentalist will not destroy or kill and will preserve the life of their bodies and minds and are not wasteful. Those who are engrafted into the vine and the often harsh pruning word of the Father shall in this work of true environmentalism preserve their life and have right to the city of God. Their will has been to do what God will of them in everything pertaining to health and life.
“The Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity; the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.” [Isaiah 26:21.]
“And this shall be the plague wherewith the Lord will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem: Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth. And it shall come to pass in that day that a great tumult from the Lord shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbor, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbor.” [Zechariah 14:12, 13.] In the mad strife of their own fierce passions, and by the awful outpouring of God’s unmingled wrath, fall the wicked inhabitants of the earth,—priests, rulers, and people, rich and poor, high and low. “And the slain of the Lord shall be at that day from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; they shall not be lamented, neither gathered, nor buried.” [Jeremiah 25:33.] {GC88 656.3}