O my soul, you have said to the Lord, “You are my Lord, My goodness is nothing apart from You.” Psalm 16:2 NKJV

I woke up this morning to a blinking alarm clock. At some point during the night, we must have experienced a power outage. I could tell it had been brief, since the clock still told the correct time. Only it’s blinking let me know it had been separated from its power supply.

To reset it would be simple since the time still looked correct. But in truth, a tiny fraction of time had been lost. If these power outages continued, siphoning away small bits of time, eventually they would add up to a noticeable loss.

Tiny slips add up

The danger of spiritual drift comes upon us in the same way. We make a small misstep here, a little sin there, and suddenly our witness is far from the path where we started. When we become separated from our source of power—God—, we step onto the slippery slope of drifting away from Him.

As Christians, most of us recognize the dangers the “big sins.” The threat to us comes in the forms of little transgressions: a bit of gossip, withholding of forgiveness, a harsh word spoken without love, and let’s don’t even bring up the subject of income taxes. Tiny seemingly innocuous blips that add up to our detriment and to the harm of those watching to examine our faith. Like a water bucket with a slow leak, we’ll eventually be too dry to relieve their thirst. 

Or we’ll be the clock that can’t tell them the time because the truth has been lost to us as we’ve let small moments separate us from God.

Too busy to read for daily Bible reading . . . unplugged.

Too distracted to pray . . . unplugged.

Too hurried to help a stranger . . . unplugged.

Too overwhelmed to express gratitude to God for His goodness . . . unplugged.

No good in separation

The words of Psalm 16 ring true when they tell us our goodness is nothing apart from Jesus. Yet if we’re honest, we separate ourselves from Him in a thousand little ways every day through thoughts left unchecked, prioritizing our will for our day over His, and giving ear to emotions that were never meant to be our guiding force. 

We listen to things we shouldn’t and look at things best not seen. We think the thoughts and want the things.

Scripture makes it clear that there is nothing good in us apart from Christ. The good we think we do is nothing if Christ isn’t the source equipping us for it.

Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. John 15:4

The word abide means to not depart from. Jesus tells His disciples that they can’t bear fruit unless they stay connected to Him.

Be anchored in constant truth

He’s not telling us we’ll be okay if we check in often, like taking a car for a yearly tune-up. He’s saying we need an uninterrupted fellowship with Him.

But every time we become separated, even for a moment, a bit of our witness for Christ slips away—again and again and again until we’ve no trustworthy witness left.

 Our time here is short. We’ve no time to waste in serving God’s kingdom. Stay plugged into the source and be a blessing to the lost and hurting world.

In APART, by Lori Altebaumer, we are given a vital warning and encourage to stay connected to the source of truth and protection. We hope this blesses you. Share on X