What’s Clogging Our Pipes

The water begins to drain just a little slower and a little slower, but it’s not so bad that you do anything about it. In a few weeks you notice that it is taking  a bit longer for the water to leave the sink, but it does eventually drain away. Then finally one day the water will not drain at all. You can no longer run that nice pure water into your sink. Sometimes the process of pipes clogging happens so slowly that it is barely noticeable. You realize that something has to be done because you have created a mess. So you call in a plumber to unstop your drain. Or maybe you get a plumber’s snake and try to unclog it yourself. 

Finally, you or a plumber begin running the auger through the clogged pipe, and whatever has accumulated in the pipe begins coming out. What you see is not pretty, nor dose it smell good. The odor is repulsive. It makes you gag. The clog is a mass of hair, dead skin, toothpaste, soap and no telling what else which has evolved into a black stinking mess of goop. You can't believe you let your sink get in such shape. You may be embarrassed that the plumber is seeing what you have allowed to build up in your pipe. But at least you have gotten rid of that which had completely rendered your sink useless.

The same thing happens to our spiritual pipes. Very often sin slowly enters our lives. It can be those little sins, the kind of sin that “everybody” sins. Before long those little sins become bigger sins and we stop communicating with God. We neglect our Bible reading, our prayer time, and the time of worship and praise. We get caught up in the things of the world. The Bible teaches that we are not of the world, but when we allow the world to enter our lives that is when we create a clog so great that Christ's likeness and love ceases to flow freely through our spiritual pipeline. We are unable to hear from God. 

Like the pure water that can no longer flow in the clogged pipe in our bathroom sink God’s blessings and his power in our lives cannot flow if we live in sin. Most of the time the clogging of our spiritual pipes happens so slowly that we may not notice what’s happening until we are in a mess. God detests the sin in our lives. Sin creates a nasty stinking mess within us. What we offer is a terrible odor to God. God desires a sweet smelling aroma sent to him by an offering of obedience. God’s forgiveness when we repent of our sins is the only thing that will unclog our clogged spiritual pipes. All we have to do is ask him to forgive us and stop clogging our pipes with sin.

“Our lives are a pleasing aroma of Christ rising up to God...” 2 Corinthians 2:15