Are you losing ground?

If you’ve been reading my messages for a while, you’ve seen a common theme:

Basic to a man’s calling is the responsibility to cultivate and keep what God entrusts to him.

This—as I’ve mentioned many times—is rooted in the Lord’s charge to Adam in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 2:15).

What I haven’t emphasized enough, though, is how central a man’s own heart is to fulfilling this calling.

Before a man can faithfully cultivate a marriage, a family, a vocation, or a wider domain, he must learn to cultivate and keep what is going on inside him, in his own heart.

If a man does not nurture and guard his inner life, it will not stay neutral.

It will regress.

You can count on it.

And the process of spiritual slackening usually looks like this.

First comes self-sufficiency.

Dependence erodes. Bible reading and prayer fade. And a man begins to rely on his experience or past faithfulness instead of present trust in God.

Then comes apathy.

Love cools and obedience loses urgency.

God is still believed in, but no longer actively attended to—which makes compromise come easy.

Finally comes pleasure.

When the joy of the Lord is no longer at the center, comfort and carnal pleasures move in to fill the gap.

Entertainment replaces attention. Escape replaces endurance.

This is the pattern men follow when they begin losing ground.

And the results are predictable...

Blessings go untended. Character suffers. Relationships weaken.

And kingdom impact shrinks...

...not because God withdrew, but because the garden was left uncultivated and unguarded.

Scripture is clear: what is not cultivated will be overtaken, and what is not kept will be lost.

Does this sound an alarm for you?

If so, the response is not to panic, but to wake up, take initiative, and cultivate and keep what God has given you.

“Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you” (Eph. 5:14).

The place to start is with your own heart.

Because what's going on in the inside will eventually work itself out on the outside.

"Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flows the springs of life" (Pr. 4:23).

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