Text: Leviticus 6. 8-13 and Romans 12.2
Icebreaker: If you want to make a fire, what will you need? What does a fire need to keep burning?
When I arrived in Guernsey in 2011, some things were very different for me, but in the house where our family went to live, the wood burner was the most unusual and amazing discovery. Our neighbour was an expert in keeping the fire burning, and one phrase was key in what he told us about how to have a fire that was good, warm and successful: “Luiz keep putting more wood on the fire, renew the logs Luiz”, this is what he used to say. Two key things for us today are that we also need to use fresh fuel in our lives and we need to allow God to renew our minds. We can’t allow that spiritual fire to go out, so, if we want to keep the fire of God burning brightly inside of us, we must understand a few things:
1)An action and a willing attitude is required to start a fire
The first law of Newton in Physics is that “an object in rest will stay in rest unless an unbalanced force acts upon it”. This is also true in our spiritual life, everything will stay the same, unless we make a start, and begin to act in a way that changes the forces that are at work within us. Something that is very common in the world today is that we keep doing the same thing and expecting different results from that action, but if we want the fire of God to burn within us, we cannot just keep being as we are now and expect something different to happen. We are responsible to start the fire, RECOGNITION is just the first step to making IGNITION possible!
2) You must keep burning! Put fresh wood on the fire every day! Renew your mind!
God gave an order to Moses - every morning, to keep the fire burning, fresh wood must be put on the altar. It’s the same in our lives.
Recently I read a story about a woman called Martha, who was one of the first people to get electricity in their home in Ireland. The story said that Martha had wanted electricity for a few years and so, when it became available, she paid a lot of money to have it installed quickly, in order to be one of the first people to have it in her village. In the past she had complained that often she was left in darkness because by the time she realised that she needed a candle, it was already dark and it was very hard to find anything in an old stone house that only had a few small windows. So, the company installed the electricity, and her house became an attraction in her village.
Three months later, the electricity company sent an Engineer and the Customer Service Director to talk to Martha to check if there was a problem with the electricity at the house, because she had used so little energy that they could not even charge her for it.
However when they got there the surprise was even bigger! When they asked what and where the problem was, she said that there wasn’t one, saying instead that the electricity was great and that she loved it! Confused, they asked why she wasn’t using it if was so good, and her reply left everybody amazed. She said: “When I don’t realise that dusk is coming and miss the light completely I can turn on the lights and find my match and candle very fast, then I can light it up in a secure and quick way and then I can turn the lights down for the rest of the night”.
This story reminds us that sometimes, like Martha, we want “new things” and we are prepared to pay the price, or verbally commit to doing things differently in order to respond to the present world. But, when it happens and the ‘new’ arrives, we prefer to stay the same, remaining in our ‘comfort zone’ instead of experiencing the renewal that would lead us to finding new ways to live. God will send the fire, but if there is no RENEWAL on His terms, and in His way, the fire will die down and then go out.
To keep our passion for God burning, and to keep the closeness of God that moves us, we need to put fresh spiritual wood on the fire every day! This wood will be our prayers, our reading of scripture, our worship, and our time with Him and around Him. We need to keep refueling the fire in this way every day.
The Bible tells us that Moses was instructed to make sure that new wood was added every day to the fire on the altar. This wood must be fresh wood, because old wood would dampen down the fire. It is the same for us - stale religiosity cannot keep the fire that is inside of us burning, so we must put fresh things in front of the Lord! Don’t offer the old (even yourself), but make a new offer of everything that you are and have, to God each day, just as His mercies to you are fresh and new every morning! In this way, you will become living sacrifices, living life in all its fullness for God’s glory!
3) Fire from yesterday was good for yesterday, but today you need to refuel the fire.
A mistake that the people of God often make, is to think that the fire of yesterday will keep them warm and keep burning today! That’s impossible; it’s like saying that because you ate yesterday, you don’t need to eat today! Whilst it is good to recall what God has done in our lives, and good to give that testimony, it is also possible to spend too much time looking back and not enough in the present, to see what God is revealing and doing today.
In the reading from Leviticus the priest must clean the ashes out every day. Relying too much on what is past, is to leave the ashes in the grate, and ashes cannot become a fire. Clean the ashes out today and refuel the fire of God that burns within you.
Your time, experience, gifts, works and everything that you offered to God yesterday was good for yesterday, today is a new day with Him, and so there is a new opportunity to offer yourself to God and to allow God to be glorified through you!
Today is a time to gather fresh wood, so that the fire of God does not go out in our life.
Conclusion:
I don’t know how your life is today, maybe the fire of the Holy Spirit needs refuelling in your life, or maybe the fire needs to be rekindled! The only thing that I know is that if you feel full of ashes, God brought you here today because He wants to change that situation and put a new fire inside of you! Today is time to be in a loving relationship with God again! Is a new time in our lives, do you want that? Let’s pray
