Most of you people who know me probably know that I like fire. Not in some crazy burn-everything-in-sight-pro like, but I enjoy making fires and watching them, and burning different things to see what burns better, faster, and things like that.
Well anyway, lately I've been thinking about how fire is often used as an analogy for the passion we have for God. And the more think of it, the more I like it. I'm just going to talk about fire for a bit here and I want you to try and see how they compare to the Christian life.
When starting a fire, an outside flame or spark has to introduced in order to start a fire. A bunch of sticks and kindling (probably) isn't going to just burst into flames. Also when starting a fire, it's easier to start with kindling and small branches rather than starting with a whole log.
Three essentials to any fire are: heat, oxygen, and fuel. If one of these is missing, then there is no fire.
When you have a fire going, you must keep adding more fuel if you don't want your fire to go out. But on the flip side, you don't want to add more fuel than the fire can take and smoother the fire.
Also a fire is only useful if someone is there to use it (duh).
Well, I think you get the gist of what I'm hitting at. Maybe.
But one more thing I want to point out. Christian culture is also whining about "where has the passion gone? where if the fire that we used to have?" Well, I would like to ask them when was the last time they feed the flames? How can you expect a fire to keep burning when you don't putting any more fuel on it?
Anyway, that's all I've got to say for now.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Monday, November 9, 2009
The more excellent way...
I've been hearing a lot about Christianity lately. About what it is what it isn't and what it should be. Different things we as Christians should be doing, should be acting like. I've been hearing words like FAITH, Just, Grace, Mercy, Courage, Bold, Kindness. I've heard of Destiny, HOPE, Passion, Eternal Life, Humility, Glory, Sacrifice, Offering, and Victory. People talk of Trust, Responsibility, Salvation, Justification, Sanctification, Glorification, Promises, Covenants, and of the Law. But I wonder if you notice whats missing from these lists. Do you see it? Because just as it's missing from these lists, so I think it is missing in our lives. It is the greatest commandment given by God Himself! and yet we miss it, we lack it in our lives. How can we skip over this?
If you haven't figured it out yet, I'll help you out.
Matt. 22:37-40 'And He said to them, "You shall LOVE the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And a second is like it: You shall LOVE your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets."
John 3:16 'For God so LOVED the world...'
I Tim. 1:5 'The aim of our charge is LOVE that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.'
I Corinthians 13:13 'So now faith, hope and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is LOVE.'
The Bible puts this huge emphasis on love, but we never seem to talk about, to study it, to understand what it truly means to love in the way that God calls use to.
You have heard of loving your enemy, but when was the last time that you actually DID it? Are you prepared to Love? Tell me, if someone were to kill your family, could you love them? because that what God is calling use to do when He tells use to love our enemies. Because guess what? We killed His Son and HE STILL LOVES US. He LET us kill His SON that we, his enemies, might LOVE Him back! Love is radical. Love isn't easy. We throw the word Love around like it was a penny. Its easy to give up a penny. You leave them laying around all over the place. But what if we treated love like a million dollars? Would you still give it as freely?
And Love is not this mushy push over 'I'm going to hug everyone' crap. Love is fierce. Love has power. Love is powerful. But we have have forgotten what it is. Ha, we haven't forgotten, we've just ignored it. How could we forget it when the greatest example is the Defining thing in our lives: JESUS. We just choose not to look at it, not to notice it, because then we would be responsible to DO something with it!
We have this misconception about love that it's about us, about making ourselves feel good, feel better about our selves. Love is the opposite! Love is about others, it's about sacrificing our selves, giving of our selves that others might be benefited. And we have something that can benefit the world, the nations, more than anything else: the LOVE OF A SAVIOR!
Love also has to be willing to do the hard things. The things that no one wants to do, but must be. I like the analigie of a dieing horse. A horse is dieing and you know that it will probably die. So are you going to let it suffer for a while as it slow dies, or can you muster up the love to kill it quickly? Sounds harsh, but sometimes love is. Again, Love isn't about us feeling good.
So, do you think you're brave enough to love? Do you have enough faith and trust that God will give you the strength to love? Is your hope great enough to move you to love?
If you haven't figured it out yet, I'll help you out.
Matt. 22:37-40 'And He said to them, "You shall LOVE the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And a second is like it: You shall LOVE your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets."
John 3:16 'For God so LOVED the world...'
I Tim. 1:5 'The aim of our charge is LOVE that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.'
I Corinthians 13:13 'So now faith, hope and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is LOVE.'
The Bible puts this huge emphasis on love, but we never seem to talk about, to study it, to understand what it truly means to love in the way that God calls use to.
You have heard of loving your enemy, but when was the last time that you actually DID it? Are you prepared to Love? Tell me, if someone were to kill your family, could you love them? because that what God is calling use to do when He tells use to love our enemies. Because guess what? We killed His Son and HE STILL LOVES US. He LET us kill His SON that we, his enemies, might LOVE Him back! Love is radical. Love isn't easy. We throw the word Love around like it was a penny. Its easy to give up a penny. You leave them laying around all over the place. But what if we treated love like a million dollars? Would you still give it as freely?
And Love is not this mushy push over 'I'm going to hug everyone' crap. Love is fierce. Love has power. Love is powerful. But we have have forgotten what it is. Ha, we haven't forgotten, we've just ignored it. How could we forget it when the greatest example is the Defining thing in our lives: JESUS. We just choose not to look at it, not to notice it, because then we would be responsible to DO something with it!
We have this misconception about love that it's about us, about making ourselves feel good, feel better about our selves. Love is the opposite! Love is about others, it's about sacrificing our selves, giving of our selves that others might be benefited. And we have something that can benefit the world, the nations, more than anything else: the LOVE OF A SAVIOR!
Love also has to be willing to do the hard things. The things that no one wants to do, but must be. I like the analigie of a dieing horse. A horse is dieing and you know that it will probably die. So are you going to let it suffer for a while as it slow dies, or can you muster up the love to kill it quickly? Sounds harsh, but sometimes love is. Again, Love isn't about us feeling good.
So, do you think you're brave enough to love? Do you have enough faith and trust that God will give you the strength to love? Is your hope great enough to move you to love?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)