Have you ever stopped to watch the thousands of ants as they continuously work on their ant hill? They never seem to stop. Day after day, all spring, summer and fall, they haul those bits of dirt and sand out of their tunnels and deposit them onto the surface of the mound.
In fact, one such ant hill scientists decided to study by pumping concrete down into the tunnels, and later excavate around the concrete once it had hardened so that they could see the amazing complexity of the tunnels. It took approximately 10 tons of concrete to fill this one ant hill! The tunnels reached so far down into the earth that in order for the ants to haul out the dirt from the bottom to the top of it would have been the equivalent to a human hauling four times their body weight a kilometer up a hill!
What drives the ants to push themselves this hard? They can have the largest, most complex tunnel system in the world, yet they never stop making it bigger and better. They never act like they have achieved the finish to what they are making.
As a Christian this is the exact attitude that we should feel. Many people say that it is impossible to be perfect, but this is only partly true. Overall throughout the entirety of our lives, yes, we have all sinned at some point or another, and this makes us “imperfect.” But this shouldn’t stop us from trying to attain perfection from that point onward in our life. Paul certainly didn’t.
Philippians 3:8-16 Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,
And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:
That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;
If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.
Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.
Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,
I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.
Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing.”
So we see that perfection is attainable, but that if we do reach that level of perfection we should never think that we have nothing left to improve upon. It is when you think that you are perfect that you stop trying. You stop putting in the maximum amount of effort into your life in Christ.
They have this kind of mentality in the NFL. At halftime one of the teams may be leading by several scores and they are all pumped up and excited, but the coach needs to remind them that the game isn’t over yet. The win isn’t theirs yet. At the start of the second half that team needs to play like the score is even, as every point from that moment on matters. Always scoring, always improving, never giving up and never slowing down.
1 Corinthians 9:24 “Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain.”
Did you know that a tree never fully stops growing? The fastest that a tree grows is when it is young as it shoots upwards into the sky, eventually reaching maturity. But once it is mature, it still grows. It is always adding a few more branches here, a few over there, adding another ring in the trunk with each season. It may be mature, but never does it stop growing.
So what are the areas in your life that you think that you could improve in? Maybe you need a little bit more patience in certain situations, or maybe you need to be a little bit more thankful for the things that you have. Maybe you need to be filled with more joy, or forgiveness. There are so many things in which we can improve even further.
So the next time that you see a giant ant hill remember how much effort they put into their home. It may be “perfect” in every way, but they always continue to work on it even more. Have this kind of attitude in your own life. Never think that you are perfect, but always continue to strive for perfection!
In Christ
Andrew
We can be found on your web browser by searching, tlkjbc where you can find our diaries distributed through various platforms. We are not associated, nor affiliated with any other religious groups. You can get our entire podcast feeds directly, along with transcripts at tlkjbc.com or I suppose that you could find us somewhere up here, in the Great Northern Minnesota woods.
Teufer Lake King James Bible Church 