"KEEP THE SPIRITUAL FIRE BURNING!"
Lesson 1

This past week, on the television, I saw a video of a man stepping outside with a pot of boiling water then, tossing the water into the air it instantly changed to snow. He was near the top of Mount Washington in New Hampshire and it was thirty-five degrees below zero. My first reaction was, "O boy, that's neat." Then I thought, (being the cold-natured type that I am...) "Wow, that's really cold." Considering that water boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit, and it freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit, the air on Mt. Washington was so cold that the water cooled down 180+ degrees in less than a second. The water froze because of several things, but mostly it froze because of a failure to maintain the fire.

Christians are sometimes like that boiling water; just burning inside to get to work for the Lord...participate on a visitation team, take part in the worship service, work in V. B. S., prepare the Lord's Supper, lock the building, etc., etc., etc. However, after a few years (or a few months) they begin to cool and when the cooling begins they are transformed very quickly. Why does this happen? How can we maintain our spiritual fire.

A lot of energy (398 BTUs) is needed, continuously, to boil water and keep it boiling, but very little is needed for it to cool, or even freeze. Just a flick of the wrist and the boiling water was frozen. Paul wrote to the church in Ephesus to "endeavor to keep (implies effort) the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." (Ephesians 4:3). Paul also said to the Galatians (Galatians 5:6) that "what avails is faith working (the Greek word "energeo" - energy!) through love." Spiritually speaking, energy/effort/work is required in order to stay warm. But, what is required to freeze? Just do nothing. Work, that is, the input of energy, is important to maintaining our spiritual fire.

Lesson 2, next week...