This is the
time of year that property owners burn ditch banks and the smoke fills the
valley. Yesterday as I drove to a neighboring town I came upon a controlled burn…that
was out of control. Flames ate through cattails and climbed halfway up the
small mesa devouring brush along the way. Fifteen firefighters, six fire trucks
and two hours later the seven-acre fire was brought under control. The Apostle Paul
identified Timothy’s sincere faith, but he didn’t want Timothy to be satisfied
with a controlled faith. Paul’s words are applicable to all who have sincere
faith. “For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which
is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God did not
give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of
self–discipline” (2 Tim 1:6-7 NIV).
4 comments:
Gail;
-----I think I have expert experience with the spirit of timidity. Lack of faith in the Lord wasn’t really my problem. Lack of faith in myself was. All religious rhetoric aside, faith is an attitude necessary for all goings on. Why do we pay mortgages on our houses? Because we have faith in their delivering shelter. We insert and turn the key to our car in the morning having faith that it will start and get us to work to pay our mortgages. In fact, we got out of bed in the first place because we believed enough future would be there to warrant some investment in it. If we were sure the earth was to be struck by a rogue planet within thirty-five seconds, I doubt we would get out of bed. I know I wouldn’t. So faith goes forth before us in everything we do. The big deal about faith in the Lord is more in our acknowledgment of His involvement in our lives than that we merely have faith that He exists.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
The limitations of a one paragraph sermon mean that there are so many tangents you can go with comparing an uncontrolled burn with one guided by the Spirit, I know it gets my mind going. But I guess you will get to those on another day.
The power of a one paragraph sermon is that people will actually read it. I am afraid we have short attention spans today.
Grace and peace.
Pumice you are spot on with your comments. My mind too was going many directions. I think I was move to the “fan the flames” passage because I see in myself needing to move more from smoldering to full flames.
Please feel free to share your brainstorming with us. Or anytime you have a thought that doesn’t correspond to the daily blog, just go a different direction in your comments. The Spirit seems to work that way and sometimes we simply wind up on different trains.
Gail
So true.
Grace and peace
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