Whenever I drive to a distant city for pleasure or ministry, I do one thing before I check into my hotel. I fill up my car with gas. I do this in case an emergency comes during the night that would require me to depart immediately at an hour when an open gas station may be hard to find.
My kids teased me about this while on our family trips when they were growing up. They wanted to check into our destination hotel and jump in the pool, but dad always made the gas stop first. Just the other day, I was talking to my daughter, Anna, about one of her recent ministry trips. She had just checked into the hotel provided by her host pastor, but before she checked in she gassed up. She smiled at me and said, “I was taught well.”
Too many people enter a dark season of life without a fresh infilling of the Spirit. When a spiritual emergency takes place in the darkness of an unfamiliar place they try to find their way home on an empty tank. When daylight finally comes their empty life is found abandoned on the roadside unable to finish the journey.
Every believer carries the Spirit, but Paul did say to the Ephesians to be filled with the Spirit. I am told the original language in Paul’s exhortation could read, “Be being filled with the Spirit.” That “be being filled” is an on-going work of the Spirit in the life of a healthy follower of Christ. In other words, we need a repeated work of Pentecost taking place each and every day of our lives to equip us for the unique assignments each of us carries.
Have you stopped for a season of your life in a strange and unfamiliar destination? Does it look like night is coming? Before you do anything, ask God for a fresh infilling of His Spirit. Do this because you never know when you will be awakened in the night and need to find your way back home. If you are already filled with the Spirit, when fear comes calling, it will not find a place of influence in your life because you carry the fullness of God’s presence.
No comments:
Post a Comment