A full tank - fueled for the day

When my BBQ grill runs out of propane, it is usually right in the middle of cooking something like chicken or steak. There I sit, expecting a tasty BBQ meal and then at about halfway through, I have to improvise by bringing it all inside and cooking it on the stovetop. What a disappointment it is when the flames 'burn out'. In our spiritual life, our flame can burn out if it isn't kept fueled and ready for use. Just a little fuel is not enough - it can leave you 'improvising' life - and we all know improvised life isn't as good at the one 'finished well'!

Don’t burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant. Don’t quit in hard times; pray all the harder. Help needy Christians; be inventive in hospitality. (Romans 12:12)

How is it you keep yourself fueled and aflame? I know some like to get away to that special spot in the woods, just taking in nature for a while. Others appreciate a great family gathering, complete with card games and good food, where laughter abounds and the 'bragging rights' of being the best at canasta or euchre is something we know isn't a 'pride thing', but a way of having a little fun with the sibs. Another may feel a special 'infilling' of God's best just by taking a long walk, feeding a few ducks along the canal, and observing the beauty of the trees in full bloom. 

Fuel is found in a lot of things, but there is one fuel that never burns out - the fuel of the Word. We need to take it in regularly, so we remain fueled for the 'fire' of life. We also find fuel in times of contemplative prayer - those times when we just let our mind wander in God's presence - allowing him to speak into us and embracing his peace as it envelopes our lives. Listen to a long play list of your favorite worship songs and see what it does for your spirit. It will refuel you without you even realizing it - little bits and pieces of those songs speaking something deep into your spirit. 

Keep yourself fueled - this suggests to us that there is an active participation in us remaining fueled. It doesn't happen by osmosis. We just don't sit and expect to be refueled. We open the Word of God, get into it, come across passages we don't really understand, and then we ask God to show us the meaning. We dig out the dictionary and discover the various meanings of the words used. We allow God to open his Word to us and to break us open with it, as well. We take time to admit our sin, seek his forgiveness, and listen intently as he breaks chains in our lives. Keep means we don't let up - ever!

Be alert and cheerfully expectant. If I am waiting for a delivery from Amazon, I am 'alert' to the sounds of the idling engine outside by the curb and the footsteps of the one coming to the door. If I am not expecting anything that day, my level of alertness to the 'street noises' is different. I am not 'on alert' because there is nothing expected. Part of keeping ourselves fueled is living with an expectation of receiving something each day - of being filled over and over again - so we are ready for the day. Expectant people find they aren't disappointed in his presence. For it is there they find filling for their 'tank' that is unlike any other 'fuel'. Just sayin!

You are so full of it

Joy is prayer; joy is strength: joy is love; joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls. 

(Mother Teresa)

If you have ever been told that you are 'full of it', I doubt anyone meant it as a compliment! In fact, it was probably meant to be a means of point out some ridiculous idea you had, or that you are just full of yourself over some matter. It was said as a 'slam' on your character or behavior, not a compliment. When God looks at us and sees us as full of his joy, his words of encouragement are just that - encouragement to fill us up just a little more with the 'good stuff' he has prepared for our lives. What God desires most for us is that we be 'full' - not with ourselves - but with him. In turn, the joy of the Lord begins to overflow from our lives, touching the lives of others, so that what we are 'full of' becomes a means of blessing.

Be full of joy always because you belong to the Lord. Again I say, be full of joy! (Philippians 4:4)

How is it we can be 'full of joy'? It comes in remembering whose we are - who we belong to. If you belong to Jesus, you are full of his grace. You are overflowing with his peace. Your life is filled to the brim with his love. Maybe those things aren't what some would call 'joy', but if you begin to combine the ingredients of his love, grace, and peace, your heart gets pretty doggone joy-full! When we 'belong', that which we 'belong to' begins to permeate every part of our being. When I first went into the military at the age of 18, I actually lived and breathed being a part of our country's defenses. It permeated my whole being so that I even stood taller, somehow making me walk a little more determined with each step I took. It is possible to be 'filled' because we allow something to so 'permeate' our being that it becomes the very thing we live and breathe.

When that object of 'infilling' is Christ himself, we are certain to have the very 'ingredients' that lead to us being 'filled with joy'. Did you realize joy stems from having placed a great value on what becomes the source of your delight? The 'value' you place in whatever that source of your delight is determines the amount of joy your heart and mind is filled with! If you value your money, your source of delight is something that will fritter away over time, especially if you put it in something as volatile as the stock market. If you value a vehicle that is your 'dream car', you might find great delight in it while it is running well, but when it begins to suffer from the inevitable breakdown of parts, where will your joy be then? Joy is found in more than the 'object' - it is found in the delight we place in that object.

When the object of our delight is Christ, we are placing our delight in something that is unchangeable. His love and grace don't change - our appreciation of them might over time, but his love and grace remain consistent for all time. His peace is as reliable today as it was yesterday, yet we may not appreciate the fullness of that peace equally at all times. It isn't that what 'makes us full' has changed, it is that we find our need for these things vacillates over time. We might need a little more of the sense of his love right now because we are feeling kind of down on ourselves, or that we are not as 'lovable' as we should be right now. We could need to have a huge infilling of his grace because we have been trekking down paths that have led us to places of compromise in our lives. Regardless of the need, the filling comes from exactly the same source!

Be full of joy - not of yourself, or the circumstances, or the momentary and fleeting privilege we enjoy. Be full of that which never changes, is always consistent, and is ever there in our lives. Be full of Christ and in so choosing to be 'filled' you will find peace unimaginable, love deeper than you've experienced before, and grace beyond your wildest dreams. Joy comes not in the 'thing' we have, but in the 'one' who fills us with all these things. Just sayin!

Greeted by Grace

God's amazing grace and his robust peace go hand-in-hand. The peace of God is really not totally understood, or experienced, until one has an encounter with the amazing grace of God. Grace is like a pathway to peace - know grace and you will know peace. Don't ever think peace means the absence of anything disturbing, though. We will still find many a 'disturbance' in our lifetime, but we don't have to face those disturbances without absolute and lasting peace. We will 'rest' even though the demands are great. We will 'abide' even when the pressures try to move us out of that zone of peace. Peace isn't a place, or even an 'achieved ascendance' - it is a person - Christ. Know Christ, live in him and walk close to him, and you will know peace.

I, Paul, together here with Silas and Timothy, send greetings to the church at Thessalonica, Christians assembled by God the Father and by the Master, Jesus Christ. God's amazing grace be with you! God's robust peace! (I Thessalonians 1:1)

Paul opens this letter with these two awesome reminders - God's amazing grace WITH us and his robust peace IN us. We cannot grow in grace until grace begins to live inside us. We cannot experience peace in any circumstance until we are walking hand-in-hand with the one who navigates through those circumstances with all authority and power. The make-up of many of our everyday associations today is what scripture would have referred to as Gentiles - those who are worshiping other gods - not yet realizing their true need for the one true God. God's hope for all of us is that we will live pure lives. Think about it for a moment and you will likely agree - where there is impurity, grace and peace are oftentimes not all that frequently observed. In fact, impurity is the very reason we need grace! Where grace has been introduced, impurity begins to be displaced. These two things are interrelated, but are not co-inhabitants!

God's amazing grace be with you! The important thing for us to see here is that salvation begins with grace - it is our starting point! God's amazing grace - it is capable of doing within man what nothing else can do - setting straight what sin corrupts. For this reason, it "amazes" those who receive it - inspiring awe, surprising us with the thoroughness of its touch, and overwhelming us with its drawing power. Herein we find an assurance given to us of something we can count on - God's robust peace in us! As I have already indicated, peace is an outcome of grace. Try to experience peace when you stand in need of grace and you will find it impossible to truly know peace. Sin sets us at odds with a holy God - grace brings us close to him again. Sin produces chaos - grace restores peace. Peace is the outcome of being free - grace gives us our freedom and helps us to understand peace where chaos once existed.

Sometimes we try to get peace in a circumstance. Peace is something which comes "IN" us as a result of what has been done FOR us in the work of grace. We'd do much better asking for grace - being set free from the binding effects of the circumstance. When we ask for grace first, we are asking God's guidance to see the circumstance for exactly what it is. He will either help us walk through it with peace which passes all understanding, or he will deliver us totally from it! Either way, we have peace because of his grace! We often skip the opening words of a letter such as this, thinking they really don't say much. If we ponder each of Paul's greetings to the various churches he writes to on his missionary journeys, we find some interesting things:

- To the Corinthians he writes: I send this letter to you in God's church at Corinth, believers cleaned up by Jesus and set apart for a God-filled life. I include in my greeting all who call out to Jesus, wherever they live. He's their Master as well as ours! He celebrates their salvation (being cleaned up by Jesus) and reminds them of their calling (set apart to live a God-filled life). He points them toward living full lives - absent of the vacancy sin produces. Celebration is a result of understanding - understanding is a result of grace.

- To the Galatians he writes: So I greet you with the great words, grace and peace! We know the meaning of those words because Jesus Christ rescued us from this evil world we're in by offering himself as a sacrifice for our sins. God's plan is that we all experience that rescue. A reminder of grace and peace again - but also the emphasis being on the tremendous "rescuing" power of grace and the invitation of grace being experienced by all. An invitation must be accepted, though. If we attempt to find grace by any other means than to accept the invitation to receive it, we will be sorely disappointed with the outcome.

- To the Ephesians he writes: I greet you with the grace and peace poured into our lives by God our Father and our Master, Jesus Christ. His purpose is to remind them of the bountifulness of God's grace - it is poured into our lives. Grace is not something we experience in dribbles - it is a gushing, overflowing infilling, given from a generous heart of a merciful and compassionate God!

The openings are similar, yet they each have a different revelation of God's grace and peace. We'd do well to never discount these words - they are seed thoughts which contain great hope! Great peace isn't known without being embraced by greater grace! Just sayin!