2 Thessalonians 3:6 (NIV)
In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we command you,
brothers and sisters, to keep away from every believer who is idle and
disruptive and does not live according to the teaching you received from us.
For centuries, the Roman aqueduct in Segovia, Spain stood
as a supreme monument to civil engineering. Spanning a bowl-shaped valley, the
two-tiered, bridge-like structure stretches more than half a mile and tops 95
feet at its highest point. Its massive gray columns, like the legs of a giant
elephant, dominate the quiet neighborhoods that flank it.
Assembled without mortar sometime during the first
century after Christ, the aqueduct carried river water to the town without
interruption until 1972, when engineers rechanneled the supply entirely though
underground conduits. Unamuno, the Spanish philosopher, wrote about the
aqueduct: "For eighteen hundred years, it carried cool water from the
mountains to the hot and thirsty city. Nearly sixty generations of men drank
from its flow.
Then came another generation, a recent one, who said:
'This aqueduct is so great a marvel that it ought to be preserved for our
children, as a museum piece. We shall relieve it of its centuries-long labor.'
They did; they laid modern iron pipes. They gave the ancient stones a reverent
rest. And the aqueduct began to fall apart. Air pollution began to corrode away
at the newly exposed granite stones. What ages of service could not destroy
idleness disintegrated."
If we do not exercise the gifts the Lord has given us,
they will erode because of idleness. Are you using the gifts God has given you?
Dear Lord, thank You for the gifts You have given to each
of us. We pray that we would use them to bring honor to You and Your work. In Jesus’
Name, Amen.
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