This New Year’s weekend I had the opportunity to be with a group of men from all over the United States. (I think there were a few from other countries as well.) Anyway, they left their families and homes to come together, and bring in the New Year in fellowship, seeking the face of God. There were many ministers, diverse theological views, egos, and personalities, which were all set aside for the express purpose of crying out to God in intercession. While I was richly blessed, I was at the same time humbled as I rubbed shoulders with these men of God. As I ate with them, worshipped with them, prayed and wept with them; I was touched by their depth of passion and commitment to the Lord. I was also deeply convicted.
Today, back at home reflecting on everything; the scripture that came to my mind was, “Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards…” Although I am involved in ministry and various “work for the Kingdom,” I saw in these brothers an intensity and singularity of focus that has begun to wane in my own life. I began to see that I have allowed seemingly insignificant compromises, those “little foxes,” to trample the “vineyard” of my life. Strange, these little foxes didn’t look that dangerous at all. In fact, they were kind of cute. However, the reality is; it is their intention to eat up the blossoms that are in bloom and prevent the fruit from reaching maturity. Thank God for his Spirit, his grace, his mercy, and his people! “Catch for us the little foxes
!”
Brothers and sisters, we must be sober and alert, keeping watch over our hearts lest the little foxes enter in undetected and began to ruin the vineyard. So often we become complacent, at ease in Zion if you will. And, while we may keep out the roaring lion that seeks to devour us entirely; we ignore the little foxes that seek to ruin the vineyard. Jesus tells the church at Ephesus, “I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.”
Let us, at the beginning of this New Year, pray that God by his Spirit will reveal to us any little foxes running loose in our lives.
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