Spiritual Inspiration from a Pumpkin.

Since we are in the season of pumpkins, and since I LOVE pumpkins, I can't help but see some spiritual inspiration in them. Halloween is a time of celebrating and praising darkness. But the Bible says in Matthew 5:14-15, "Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. We are not to blend in with the darkness, but we are to stand out in the midst of it - to light the way for others. So, let's just imagine that we are all pumpkins. When you want to carve a pumpkin, you go to the pumpkin patch, or in this day and age, Walmart, and there are rows and rows of pumpkins to choose from. Some tall, some short, some skinny, some fat, some lopsided, and some with blemishes - that does kinda sound like us, doesn’t it? There are differences to the pumpkins, but for the most part, there's nothing very special about any of them. They kind of just all blend in together. Nevertheless, you pick out what you think to be your favorite one, and you take it home to begin working on it. This is exactly what God does with us. We blend in with everyone else in the world, before He saves us, but he sees something special in us, so He decides to call us out from among the other pumpkins. He CHOOSES us. And He "takes us home" to begin working on us. From that point on, after He chooses us, we are no longer like the rest of those pumpkins who are still just blending in with the rest of the world. 1 Peter 2:9 says, "But ye are a CHOSEN generation, a royal priesthood, an HOLY nation, a peculiar people, that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light." So, as you know, the first thing that you do once you choose your pumpkin and take it home is clean it off. You don't want to try to shape into what you want it to be when it is still dirty on the outside. And God does the same with us after he chooses us and calls us out. He forgives us of our sin and wipes away our dirt and sin. 1 John 1:7 says, "But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." He has chosen us, called us out of darkness and into light, and cleansed us from our sins. The next thing you do with your pumpkin is cut a hole at the top. Now, this is where the hard work begins - for both the pumpkin and the carver. Unfortunately, many Christians today stop before this next step even begins. They just let Jesus cleanse them from their sins, but they don’t let Him open them to the deeper things of God. Because it hurts. It hurts to let God take the knife and begin to cut away the dark things in our lives. Sometimes we don't want to give them up or we're scared that it's going to be too painful. But if we allow God to cut away those sinful things in our lives, He opens us up to a world of spiritual possibilities. If we never took the knife to the pumpkin, it would never be able to become anything but a plain old pumpkin. Just like the rest of the pumpkins at the pumpkin patch that it was among. Isaiah 64:8 says, " But now, O Lord, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand." It's not comfortable, but if we are going to grow to become what God wants us to be, we have to surrender everything over to Him and allow ourselves to be clay in His hands for Him to mold us into whatever He wants us to be. So after we open up the pumpkin, the next step is the nitty gritty part. We have to reach our hands into the sliminess of the guts of the pumpkin, and begin to remove all of the nastiness and all of the seeds. This part is nitty gritty for God as well. Once we have surrendered to God and allowed him to truly work on us even though it's painful, He then begins to reach into our hearts and begins gutting us. Pulling out the nastiness inside. Pulling out all of the seeds of darkness - seeds of bitterness, seeds of fear, seeds of doubt, seeds of envy, seeds of hatred, seeds of pride, and it goes on and on and on. This "gutting" process is something we like to call Sanctification. If we do not allow God to "gut" us, He cannot live in us. 1 John 1:5-6 says, "This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth." We might look all clean on the outside, but until we allow God to pull out the seeds of darkness on the inside, He will not have fellowship with us. 2 Timothy 2:21 says, "If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master's use, [and] prepared unto every good work." Once we do let God purge us of all darkness, He can finally use us for His good work. After all of the seeds and all of the slimy stuff have been cleaned out of the pumpkin, we can get to the fun part - carving the face. Once God cleans us out, He is able to live IN us, and His "fun part" begins as well. He doesn't just "gut" us and leave us empty. He replaces the darkness that He took out with His light. Then, He gets to start shining through us. Once we are cleaned out, and God's light is living in us, our countenance will change. He will give us joy. Romans 15:13 says, "Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost." Now we are a complete pumpkin! But we have to continue to allow God to work on us daily. We haven't "arrived". If we allow any of these seeds of darkness to creep back in, they start to cover up God's light in us. The more dim that light gets, the more ineffective we become as Christians until eventually, we're not just ineffective Christians, but now we're completely alienated from God. Because He IS light - and He cannot have any communion with darkness. Ephesians 5:8 says, "For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light." Are you going to blend in with all of the other pumpkins during this season? Stand out among the darkness. Don't partake in it. Light the way for others.