A guide was conducting a group of tourists around the Empire State Building in New York City. On the elevator ride to the 102nd floor, a nervous woman asked, “What if these elevator cables should break? Would we go up or down?” “That,” the guide said, “depends entirely on the kind of life you’ve been leading!”
The Heavenly Father knows that even after we are saved we can be overcome by temptations from the world, the flesh, and the devil. It seems natural for us to be overly concerned about earthly things, or to think on matters that feed our lower impulses of lust, greed, or anger. Whether we go “up” or “down” in our Christian experience, depends pretty much on us and the type of life we’ve been leading.
One biblical message is abundantly clear, and that is that a Christian’s citizenship is in Heaven, and he therefore needs to constantly be pressing toward that goal. To live in the lowlands of life without “setting his affections” and “seeking those things which are above” (Col. 3:1-2) is to put himself in a dangerous position. Attaining new heights of Christian commitment and devotion is the most effective way to subdue the carnal nature within us.
There was a pilot who was flying his small aircraft one day, and he heard a noise which he recognized as the gnawing of a rat. Wondering what its sharp teeth were cutting through, he suddenly realized with horror that it might be an electric wire. Then he remembered that rodents can’t survive at high altitudes. Immediately he began climbing until finally he had to put on his oxygen mask. Soon the gnawing sound ceased, and when he landed he found the rat-dead!
Is it your desire to destroy the power of evil in your life! Do you long to live above the world and sin? Are you tired of life in the lowlands! Then read your Bible regularly, meditate upon its divine truths, develop a genuine prayer life, and actively seek to do God’s will in daily Christian service. Sinful appetites can’t survive in such spiritual heights!
May/June 1982
