Where is the SPARK? Where are the christians on Fire for God?
To be honest, in the past, and even now, I have felt that God is more distant than I would like Him to be. I remember very clearly, when I was in High School and I went on a Mission Trip to Southern California to a Program called SEMP- Students Equipped to Minister to Peers. That week down there at that college campus was an amazing time for me. I learned a lot about God, I grew closer to God, and I was pushed ot the limits for God while I walked up to perfect strangers asking them questions about their religious life so as to have Conversations about God. I really was changed Spiritually that week. Then I came back and was on FIRE for God. I wanted to change the world (or at least it felt like it), and then after a few weeks, it was back to normal, not a good normal, a dull normal.
It seems that often times that is what happens. We just get in this rut, especially if nothing is new. When I went to Latvia this Summer, I felt a bit of that, but not as much as I was expecting to.
Another example is a Brand New Believer, not someone who has gone to church all their lives, but someone who just comes to Christ at an age where they can totally comprehend everything, maybe in College. This new believer, when you watch them, they are reading their bibles and everything is new. Everything is exciting. They maybe have never heard of certain Bible Stories, or they have fresh ideas on biblical subjects and like to talk about them with others.
I want that back. I want that Fresh Fire, that Deep yearning for God. Lord, help me to grow closer to you. I have read numerous christian living type books, but one that I have heard quotes from recently, and been reccomended to me is The Pursuit of God, by A.W. Tozer. I checked it out from my church Library on Sunday and started it tonight. It is very good.
In this first chapter, Tozer talks about that Fire. He mentions that we have become a society where you "Accept" God and that is that, You are a Christian. He says there is something wrong with that, that we need to also Pursue God.
"The whole transaction of religious conversation has been made mechanical and spiritless. Faith may now be exercised without a jar to the moral life and without embarrassment to the Adamic ego. Christ may be "Received" with the creating any special love for Him in the soul of the receiver. The man is"Saved" but he is not hungry nor thirsty after God. In fact, he is specifically taught to be satisfied and is encouraged to be content with little."
-Tozer- The Pursuit of God- Pgs12-13
May we all find that FIRE that was started in us created ONLY from God himself.
2 comments:
That is a wonderful book. Funnily enough this is what Pastor preached about in Sunday! Finding Gods dream for His church and living it out in our everyday lives; not just in the church building on Sundays.
That sounds like a really great book, Tim. MAN - that Tozer's so great! One of the small groups in our big group at church is going to be doing "God's Pursuit of Man" and now i'm tempted to join them!
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