• Inlets And Outlets

  Contributed by Pat Cook on Dec 5, 2011 (message contributor)

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  Scripture:  None

  Tags:  Grace

  Denomination: Baptist

INLETS AND OUTLETS

My favourite spot here on Cape Sable Island is the walk from Cat Rock to Clam Point. It’s a beautiful location, quiet and peaceful, and I love meeting God there. But along the way, you will walk by several ponds. Some of the ponds are quite nice. But some of them are not. Stinky, slimy, and green. And then other ponds aren’t really so much ponds anymore. They’re just a dry bed with cracked mud.

Now, there are 2 reasons why ponds become ineffective, unable to support life besides algae and mosquito larvae. 2 reasons, I mean, besides pollution. The 1st reason is that ponds with no inlet will dry up. Ponds with no inlet will just have all their water trickle out of them, run off into the sea, and nothing to replace that lost water. And the 2nd reason is that ponds with no outlet will stagnate. The water just evaporates, and leaves a thick residue of gunk, which keeps building up. Everything flows in, and nothing flows out, and it gets slimy.

You see, a pond needs to receive fresh water, and to pour out the same. In the same way, Christians need to receive God’s grace and to extend God’s grace so they don’t dry up or stagnate. A believer who doesn’t receive God’s grace will dry up, and a believer that doesn’t give out grace will stagnate and grow moldy and slimy. It’s that simple.