To wake up in a nation where we have killed 46,633,260 (and counting) babies in the womb since 1973 and called it choice, where each citizen owes a $50,000 share toward an eleven trillion dollar national debt is enough to put a chill in the air.  I guess the new political mantra is "charge it forward."  It is then not hard to see hard hearts and disobedience spirits in our world.  But what about those of us say we know the Lord Jesus Christ and claim to be his followers?  Are our hearts described by those around us as tender and responsive?  Or are we clinging to the cold dead heart that is of the flesh and cannot change.  We cannot will ourselves to become like Christ for it is the inward working of the Holy Spirit.  We can, and often do, kick against the goads by the quenching of the Holy Spirit's fire (not doing what He wants us to do) and by grieving the Holy Spirit (by doing the very things He doesn't want us to do).  In behaving thus we become the children of "unbelief" or "disobedience" spoken of in Ephesians 2.  Why is this? Because we fool ourselves into thinking we have a close relationship with the Savior, when our outward actions do give witness to the opposite!  Thus we take yet another turn on the merry-go-round of self-delusion and terminal hypocrisy until the mercy of indescribable Grace illuminates our black hearts and gives us the impetus to ask for forgiveness and turn once again to the Way of Holiness which is Christ Himself.

It is our nature to wonder where we might spend eternity.  However, the real question is where are we going to spent today?  Will it be in communion with Christ?  OR will it be in communion with self?  The former brings light and life, and the latter is stone cold.