Keep Up With Your Spiritual Maintenance
Word-Of-The-Day: ‘So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.”’ (Genesis 6:13)
Having been in the IT field my entire adult life, I know from experience preventative maintenance helps the longevity of items. When items are not cleaned or cared for on a regular basis, they suffer problems earlier and tend to break down before the end of their lifecycle is complete. I’ve seen equipment in the harsh desert environment of the Middle East caked in dust after only a few months of arrival and use. Cooling fans and grilles get clogged, and equipment runs hotter. They need cleaned or they will quit working.
This doesn’t mean all problems are solved by preventive maintenance; like in our cars, the normal wear and tear of moving parts tend to eventually cause failures. The friction of electrons flying around in electronic components eventually will cause a computer or electronic device to one day decide to go ‘poof’! The human body is no different, but preventive maintenance like checkups or dental cleanings helps forestall and delay that day of ‘poof’ for us.
Sometimes, after something goes ‘poof’, we can then do corrective maintenance to fix the problem. The amount of corrective maintenance may rely on how well the preventive maintenance was performed. The difference between OEM parts and replacement gear is sometimes how well we did maintenance, and how long our cars, our computers, or we go until that one final ‘poof’ may all depend on how well or how poor we kept up with our maintenance.
God believes in preventive and corrective maintenance! I can state this as fact from several examples in Scriptures, with the first major items done in Genesis. Evil had permeated the Earth and mankind. We find all were stained with sin, so much sin God decided to do a reset. He gave Noah the plans and the purpose to build the Ark, and then once the Ark was complete, he had Noah – along with one pair of every animal – get into the Ark and caused the rain and the springs to pop and flood the Earth until all other men and creatures were cleansed away. God saw a problem and pulled a preventive maintenance action to prevent a bad issue from getting worse.
This also was done when He saw the evil coming from Sodom and Gomorrah, when he had the two angels go and rescue Lot before destroying the two cities (in Genesis 18 and 19). God saw the evil reached a level that needed correction, and God took action. These actions were done to protect those who had obedience to Him and loved Him, remembering to serve only Him. God again did this for the Israelites, twice. Once was to move the Israelites out of peril and into their promised land of Canaan, during the Exodus and subsequent roaming of the 12 tribes through the Wilderness for 40 years, to both deliver them (leaving Egypt) and to correct them (in their lack of Faith, to have the unbelieving generation die off).
God again performed ‘maintenance’ on His people, best described in Jeremiah, when their sins and unbelief had them exiled into Babylon for 70 years, where they then rekindled their relationship with God while in captivity under Babylonian rule. Once they were properly ‘adjusted’, they (led by the efforts of Nehemiah) returned and ‘renovated’ Jerusalem and their homeland once again.
His biggest maintenance action to date was sending His Son Jesus to fulfill the Law, and to become the Sacrifice for our Salvation. His final maintenance action will be when Jesus returns again to bring His church home with Him and puts an end of sin and death through the course of the Tribulation period and Judgements against Satan and those who did not follow Christ. When that is done, there will be no more ‘tweaks’ needing made. He’s made it so that it will be maintenance-free after His final tweaks are made.
We also need to do periodic maintenance on our Spiritual lives. We do this through our study of His Scriptures, praying continually for His will do be done, and to fellowship with other Christians to ensure we are all on the same page and achieving the same goals. Like our cars, while some maintenance actions are not daily needs (like oil changes done quarterly to semi-annual) other may be (visual inspection of your tires). Praying and reading Scriptures should be daily; fellowship should be at minimum once a week (Sunday services and Life Groups). Don’t let your maintenance schedule lapse but be on guard to keep up on your Spirit up to snuff, or it could start ‘running rough’ or making noises. Keep yourself Spirit running by continually maintaining it!
