What's Growing Inside?

My wife, Christina, recently hit me with the most amazing news. She held up a note to me that read, "You're going to be a Daddy"! I will never forget that feeling of shock and sheer joy, knowing that my wife is pregnant with our first daughter or son. She has the smallest parts of a living human being growing inside of her, and it's something that I will never get used to. What a blessing!

Unfortunately, not all pregnancies are happy occasions with bright and hopeful futures. The Bible gives us such an example. I am referring to a passage in the 14th verse of the 7th Psalm. It states, "He who is pregnant with evil and conceives trouble gives birth to disillusionment."

We all have ideas, motives, dreams, plans, etc. growing inside of us. When the Lord is not the Director of our life and our hearts, sin is the primary resident that begins to grow inside of us like a baby would in a mommy-to-be. It starts out small and difficult to detect ... but it's there. Soon, if unchecked by the Holy Spirit, that sin begins to grow, and people begin to take notice of its effects on your walk and your life. You try to disguise it, hide it, so nobody will notice, but when that sin has come to full term, the gig is up, and the birth has arrived. The end result of that sin is death.

Jesus said in 1 John 1:9 that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We don't want that sin to grow and take over. Our lives should be giving birth to the fruit of the spirit because that sin is gone, and what is growing in us is the power of the Holy Spirit.

Peter said it well in 2 Peter 3:18, "But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and forever! Amen."