Quiet Times Reflections: Fan the flame

Quiet Times Reflections: Fan the flame

This is why I remind you to fan into flames the spiritual gift God gave you when I laid my hands on you.  For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.  Through the power of the Holy Spirit who lives within us, carefully guard the precious truth that has been entrusted to you.

2 Timothy 1:6-7, 14

Every fall my nephew has a huge bonfire and then bakes the most delicious pizzas in his outdoor oven.  The scent of wood burning pizza and the bonfire sticks to our clothes for days bringing with it the sweet remembrance of times spent with each other.  I thought of him when I read this verse.  The bonfire starts off with a strategically placed Tepee built with different size tree limbs and trunks.  Although powerful looking it serves no purpose until it is lit and nursed into a strong powerful heat source.  When the time is right, the spark is lit and the night sky becomes brilliant with the light from the fire.  The outside temperature can be in the teens and yet the closer we get to the fire the warmer the air around us becomes.

The spiritual gift God gave to Timothy, and likewise to each of us, started with a spark.  The wood for the bonfire had been instilled in Timothy as a youth by his godly mother and grandmother.  Now was the time Timothy would have to ‘fan into flames’ that spark through exercising the power of the Holy Spirit living within him.  Flames will not come when wood is wet and likewise our faith will not grow when saturated with fear and anxiety.  These do not come from the Holy Spirit but rather the enemy trying to keep the bonfire from existing.  

Timothy didn't know the exact outcome of the flames any more than we know the end of the dreams and visions God plants in our hearts.  We don’t need to know, we just need to fan those dreams and visions with the power of the Holy Spirit by renewing our minds daily with his word and his strength.  Our controlling and manipulation will always leave us with wet wood.  God’s word stands guard over that precious truth and he will bring it to pass in his timing.   He then becomes our source of power, love and self-discipline, and strength…never be extinguished. 

Light the Fuse

Control.  It's an illusion that none of us can seem to separate from reality.  Parents think they have control over their children.  Governments assume they have control over their people.  Religions think they have control over what ever it is they think they have control over.

Ok, so maybe by strict definition they do.  But control can be resisted, removed, rescinded, refuted, reneged, you get the idea.

This is not me supporting anarchy.  I am not anti-control.  Depending on where the reigns of that control rest.  I don't want to get too deep or off course and delve into the semantics and politics of all of that.  What this post and revolution are primarily concerned with is how we conduct ourselves no matter what "control," is over us.

As far as I am concerned, there is only one ultimate source of control.  One authority that will take all our decisions and actions into account.  The choices we make yesterday, today, and tomorrow will be laid out before us some day.  How we handled those choices in regards to that sovereign authority will be our undoing or remaking.

Let me make this perfectly clear.

There is one God.  His name is "I Am."  He sent his only son Jesus to redeem the whole world from death.  He speaks to us, now, today, through his Spirit.  Here and here alone rests the final authority for all life.  For me, that is irrefutable fact.  It is upon that authority that I rest all of what I believe, say and do.

If you are starting to wonder what any of that has to do with this revolution.  I've been alluding to, well here is where they meet.

Those who claim to follow Jesus (I would be among them) as a whole, have been lulled into a crippling illusion that going to a building on Sunday in nice clothing, singing a few songs, putting money in an offering, and spending about an hour and a half together, is what he imagined the Church would be.
 

I will not apologize for thinking we have bastardized his dream.

The Church is not a building.  It is not a program or a pulpit.  The Church does not succeed or fail because of a board of directors or a philandering pastor.  It does not rest in the man made authority of pointy hats, white collars, or tailored suits.

The Church is people.  The guy in the corner of the coffee shop.  The woman across from you on the train.  You.  Me.  The Church succeeds because Jesus is it's authority.  It will grow in the soil full of the best crap.  The Church doesn't fail because Jesus doesn't fail.  (What fails is us, or our expectations.)  It's authority rests in the safest place.  The nail scarred hands of the Messiah.

The Church is so much more than we mortals have restricted it to be.

The revolution is to become the Church Jesus wanted us to be.  To feed the hungry.  Quench the throats of the thirsty.  Make the stranger a guest.  Clothe the naked.  Care for the sick.  Visit the prisoner.  To look after orphans and windows.  To remember his teachings, and make disciples.To love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.

It starts inside each of us.

Get on your knees.  Cry out to God.  Ask him to strike the match, and light the fuse.

grace, peace + hope
-Bear