how christians are like pumpkins ...

I don’t want to try and spiritualize Halloween, but while drawing a jack o’lantern with one of my students at school today, I was reminded of this simple, yet powerful analogy. I also thought it would be an appropriate pre-fall outing post.

How a Christian is like a Pumpkin
(http://www.dltk-bible.com/how_a_christian_is_like_a_pumpki.htm)

God picks you from the patch, brings you in, and washes all the dirt off you. Pumpkins and people both have an inside and an outside. The outside is what everyone can see. The inside is all the important stuff, like your heart and soul. “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7)

When you first carve out a pumpkin, all you can see inside is the yucky stuff. "This is what we look like to others and what we are like when are hearts are not changed.” Like it says in Ecclesiastes 9:3, “the hearts of people, moreover, are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts.”

"God is the only one who can change our heart. But in order for God to change our heart we must become open to Him." “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.” (Revelation 3:20). Just like when you cut a hole in the top of the pumpkin, God is waiting for us to open the doors of our hearts so He can clean us out.

He wants to scoop “out all the yucky stuff inside of us. He removes the seeds of doubt, hate, impurity, and greed." Through His death on the cross, Jesus was willing to become messy for us, so that we might be clean. “I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel 36:25b-27).

Once God has taken out all the messy stuff, He can carve a beautiful smiling face. “But if we leave a pumpkin with only the insides taken out, then it's just hollow. We need to have a light inside that will truly make us alive! Jesus said, 'I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.' (John 8:12).

"When Jesus lives inside of you, you can glow! He puts His light inside of you to shine for all the world to see."