How To Keep Your Spiritual Fire Burning

Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir upwards the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands.
— 2 Timothy one:6

Practise you ever struggle to keep the fire of the Holy Spirit burning in your center? Possibly it sometimes feels similar all that is left burning are a few small embers — or peradventure even the embers are starting to die out and become cold! How exercise y'all stoke that fire within you so that it begins called-for in your middle again? That's what I desire to talk to you lot most today. Merely permit me begin by turning to a story from our family's earliest days in the former USSR and what we learned most keeping the fire burning.

We had purchased an abased flat in the eye of our city. Information technology was in miserable condition — and then ruined that it should have been condemned. But afterward restoration work was complete, the flat was just as elegant every bit it had been in the years before the Soviet occupation. Earlier restoration, the apartment was a morass of mold, collapsed ceilings, and plaster falling off the walls. But when the piece of work was consummate, the walls were covered with fine wallpaper, and magnificent chandeliers hung once again from giant, mitt-carved medallions in the middle of the ceilings. The giant crown molding that wrapped around the ceilings of each room had been meticulously restored. Every room had beautiful, new parquet floors to lucifer those that had existed before the Revolution. And the ix fireplaces — ane for each big room and in each chamber — were the most magnificent features of all. Once restored, they looked like something that belonged in a museum! Meanwhile, every other apartment in the building still remained in a land of devastation and abandonment.

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Eventually the whole building would exist beautifully restored, but when we moved into our apartment, the other apartments and the fundamental staircase of the edifice looked similar something that had been bombed in World War 2. It looked then abandoned that derelicts slept in our entry way. Nosotros were told by urban center authorities that the urban center-wide heating system would be connected to the edifice before wintertime, so nosotros installed new pipes to conduct the rut to every room in training of wonderful oestrus. But equally the conditions turned cold and winter approached, it was credible that oestrus was not coming that year and our family would be living in freezing temperatures inside our flat. This was a serious trouble, because that city got v ery cold in the wintertime.

Of a sudden those museum-quality fireplaces became necessities — and we started using those lavish fireplaces to provide oestrus for our dwelling. Transporting wood was difficult because nosotros lived downtown and at that place was no nearby source of wood. Merely in that desperate situation, our young sons — Paul, Philip, and Joel — came up with an idea well-nigh where nosotros could get wood then our family unit would have oestrus for the winter. When it's really cold, that'southward a good time to get creative! So our sons, out of their desire not to feel common cold, idea of something Denise and I would take never thought of in a million years.

The flat directly below us was in such a horrible status and it was endemic by no 1. When we first purchased our own flat, information technology was so ruined that the bath had a hole next to the toilet. Men had "missed" the toilet for so many years that the urine had eaten a hole through the floor! That apartment under us was so unkempt and so destroyed that nothing could exist salvaged. Walls were half gone; fireplaces were destroyed; and at that place was no glass in the windows! That latter feature was particularly bad for u.s. because our apartment, located directly above, felt the issue of the freezing winter air current blowing through the apartment beneath our floor.

The floors of that lower apartment had once been splendid parquet with all types of inlaid exotic woods and designs. Just those aforementioned floors had go ruined from h2o leaks, and the parquet tiles were half ripped up and lying all over the flat in irreparable, shattered pieces.

1 forenoon when Denise and I were pondering what to practise with the common cold temperatures that were getting worse by the solar day and hour, our three sons disappeared — but they presently reappeared, walking through the front door of our apartment with armloads of 100-year-former parquet flooring that they had gathered from the devastated flat below. Denise and I watched equally the two older boys shoved that old parquet into the doors of our fireplaces so lit each fire. They worked on them until a blaze was going stiff in each of those erstwhile museum pieces all over the flat. The woods was then old and dry that it began quickly popping and burning. Soon our flat was warming upwards in every room, fueled past the forest from the apartment below that our sons had collected and put on the burn down.

When it started to get cold again, we'd throw open the door to the fireplaces to run into if the fire was going out, and if we saw that there was nothing left just embers, our sons would throw on their jackets, rush downwardly two flights of steps to the abandoned apartment below, and rip upwardly more than floor (which any eventual heir-apparent would have had to supercede anyway). Soon they'd be back with armloads of antique parquet flooring. Showtime, the boys would intermission information technology into smaller pieces; then they would shove it through the fireplace doors into the fire, and nearly immediately the firm would outset warming up again.

As long as woods was on the fire, we could be bodacious that we would have heat. But if in that location was no wood left to burn or if only embers were left, information technology was certain that the burn would get out unless we took action. F uel was essential to keep those fireplaces going, for when fuel of any sort is depleted, the burn eventually goes out.

Often there was plenty wood to keep the fire called-for, merely it needed to be stoked — moved effectually and repositioned with a long poker. We'd insert that long iron rod into the wood and embers; then we'd rigorously rake them back and forth and side to side to provide more than oxygen for the embers then the burn down would continue burning longer. In fact, if we didn't regularly stoke those embers and fan the flames, we discovered that the fire could exit even if there was plenty forest to go on it burning. Those embers had to be tended to regularly to keep the burn going.

As I personally took my turns to stoke the embers, I regularly meditated on Paul'south words to Timothy in Second Timothy 1:6. In that verse, Paul wrote, "Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the souvenir of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands."

The words "stir upwards" are from the Greek word anadzoopureoo, a triple chemical compound of the Greek words, ana, zoos, and pur. The word ana carries the idea of repeating an earlier action or doing something over again. The word zoos is from the discussion zao, which means to be enthusiastic, to be fervent, to be passionate, to be vigorous, to be wholehearted, or to be zealous. The word pur is the Greek word for fire — just information technology must be noted that in Classical Greek, fire was a life-giving force. Fire was used on the hearths of every ancient home to keep people warm; it was used in matters related to the divine and supernatural; and it was used equally a force to defeat enemies. Burn down was fundamental to life and considered both practically and spiritually essential for 1'southward beingness.

When these three words are compounded, they form the Greek discussion anad z oopu r eo o — which is the very word Paul used in Second Timothy 1:6 when he told the younger government minister to "stir up" the gift of God that was in him. It implies that the burn down in Timothy'due south heart had ebbed to embers on a low burn. Hence, Paul told the younger government minister to passionately and rigorously begin again to stoke and sti r upwards the souvenir of God in his life, just as i would stoke the embers of a fire in a hearth or fireplace. Paul was not just kindly suggesting that Timothy have activity; the campaigner was commanding Timothy to spiritually reach inside and begin t o rekindle the fire in his heart.

At the time Paul wrote this epistle to Timothy, this young man was surrounded by confusion resulting from the intense persecution that was taking place. Is it possible that he was wearied and that his own fire was beginning to wane? Most likely the respond is yes. Merely regardless of Timothy's current state, Paul told him to have action before the fire went out. Timothy was to open up the door to his heart, await inside to make up one's mind the condition of his inward fire, and then take action to "put more wood on the burn down" and stir up the gift of God inside him. This would not occur accidentally but would require a proactive response. If Timothy would obey Paul'southward command, that inward fire would blaze again and Timothy would over again have fire burning in the center of his being. The younger government minister would be reconnected to the supernatural power of God and provided with a weapon that would consume his spiritual adversaries. Westward o w!

In those early on days of living in the former Soviet Spousal relationship, the Renner family learned that if we intended to have heat in our freezing apartment, we would have to become proactive to make information technology happen. We had to find fuel; we had to comport it upstairs; we had to open the door to the fireplaces; we had to put the fuel into the fire; and we had to stoke the fuel regularly throughout the day to continue information technology burning. A nd if nosotros started to hit a low fire, it meant we had to begin the process all over. Our choices were to be proactive and practise what was required or to freeze.

It is the same for y'all. If your "burn" is at a depression burn or close to going out, information technology'southward fourth dimension for you to take Paul'southward words to center "to stir up" the gift of God that is within you. You cannot depend on someone else to do something and then vital for you. So inquire the Holy Spirit how to do information technology — how to open up the door to your heart and take an honest look on the inside to appraise your need. And so let Him bear witness you how to go on in fueling your fire and stirring up those embers so that you will once again go a bright blazing inferno for Jesus Christ!

MY PRAYER FOR TODAY

Lo r d , I confess that I need to stir upwardly the gift of God that is in me. There was a time when it seemed the fires burned much brighter, but for one reason or another, I've allowed the flame in my spirit to grow colder. I accept responsibility for this, equally information technology is my heart, and I ask You to forgive me for letting my condition go this far. Today I am accepting responsibility, and I will look at my heart and decide the truth. And with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, I will begin to actively and vigorously rekindle that glorious spiritual burn that Y'all intended to fire within me. Aid me, Holy Spirit, to practice this not but once, but to continually put spiritual fuel into my eye and stoke the embers.

I pray this in Jesus' name!

MY CONFESSION FOR TODAY

I confess that my heart is a hearth for the fire of the Holy Spirit. Information technology is God's will for my heart to be spiritually ablaze, and today I will begin to do what I must practice to rekindle the flame to burn as information technology once did and to blaze even brighter. I will not allow distractions — whether they come from my own decorated schedule, from others, or even from myself — to take my attention off my spiritual condition ever again. I recognize my failure to tend to the fire has afflicted me, and I declare that from this moment onward, I volition dutifully stoke the burn and the gifts of God that take been placed inside me. I volition find fuel for the fire and I will accept responsibility to make certain it is placed on the hearth of my heart regularly so that the fire burns brilliant continuously.

I declare this past organized religion in Jesus' proper noun!

QUESTIONS FOR You lot TO CONSIDER

1. Can y'all remember a time when your heart was literally "ablaze" with the things of God? What happened forth the way to affect that burn? Accept you always stopped to ponder what you lot could have done differently to keep it burning regardless of the events that occurred effectually you lot?
2. What is your source of spiritual fuel? What feeds you? What keeps your heart on track and afire? Information technology would be salubrious to accept a few minutes to write down the sources that regularly feed your center and proceed yous stirred upward every bit you serve Jesus.
3. How long has information technology been since yous paused long enough to really look inside the door of your heart to see how much fuel is still at that place? Do you spend time with God daily and permit the Holy Spirit to do an inventory of your spiritual condition? If non, why not? This is of import enough that yous should outset doing it every day.

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Source: https://renner.org/article/keeping-the-fire-burning/

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