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Fueling the Spiritual Fire

In America, one out of every four fires is caused by arson, accounting for some half a million fires and $3 billion in direct property damage each year.  

When people intentionally set fires, lives are lost and property is destroyed.  When God ignites spiritual fires, hearts are filled with love and lives are saved.

In Exodus 3:2-3, The Angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush.  Moses was fascinated because although the bush was clearly on fire, it wasn’t damaged and it didn’t burn up.

Whenever a person or a congregation is truly on fire with God’s love people will come from miles around just to watch them “burn.”

When God sets the fires of evangelism loose in His people, these fires will bring more light, more hope, and more resources through the door than we ever dreamed possible.

Though God’s fires don’t burn people out, they do need spiritual fuel.

Fuelish attitudes are ways of thinking that ignite ordinary people in the church with a passion for introducing their family, friends, neighbors, and complete strangers into
life-changing relationships with Jesus.

The Fuel of Kindness:  Colossians 3:12 says we are to clothe ourselves with kindness…That means wrapping ourselves up in God’s love for anyone in need.

For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Taking the focus off of ourselves and putting it on God and the needs of others
is amazingly fuelish.    The Fuel of Fun.  The Fuel of Prayer and Worship.

People whom God loves and we love are lost in the darkness of sin.  Each of us has
a part to play in their rescue.

Prayer…it’s not just an activity

From the war front in Iraq, we have learned that thousands of land mines were buried in the sand in order to kill and injure American and coalition soldiers.

Finding those who know where they are buried or using technical equipment is a safeguard against this weapon.

Life has some “land mines” that can wreck or destroy our lives.

Suppose you as a soldier had to cross a field full of buried land mines.  A person who knew where each of them was buried offered to take you through.

Would you say, “I don’t want to be told what to do; I don’t want you to impose your ways upon me”?

Knowing that person could save my life, I’d stay as close behind him as possible.  I certainly would not chart my own course.

Jesus has given us the church as an instrument of instruction, guidance and protection.

Anything significant that happens in your life will be a result of God’s activity in your life.

The fuel, energy and life of the church is prayer.  Prayer is a relationship – not just an activity.  It is designed more to adjust you to God than to adjust God to you.

God doesn’t need your prayers, but He wants you to pray because of what He wants to do in and through your life.

We often think of prayer as an outlet for expressing what we need – a cry to God for help.

But prayer is the asking of God to fulfill His needs through us.

God’s original thought is not the letting of believers to achieve their own aims through prayer, but God accomplishing His purpose through the prayers of believers.

God wants to meet our needs and will as it relates to His purpose.

Prayer is responding to God’s will since He seeks our cooperation with Him.

Ordinary prayer is praying from earth to heaven.  Commanding prayer is praying from heaven to earth.

Will you be praying with me?