Does He Fuel Your Fire? Series

If you live gladly to make others glad, your life will be hard, your risks will be high, and your joy will be full . . . " (John Piper, "Don’t Waste Your Life")

Transition: The flame “like no other” is the only one to burn:

4. Eternal: Never Extinguished

Question: If you could live forever, would you and why?

Answer: "I would not live forever, because we should not live forever, because if we were supposed to live forever, then we would live forever, but we cannot live forever, which is why I would not live forever."

-- Miss Alabama in the

1994 Miss USA contest

Well, Miss Alabama, some people DO hope to live forever. For one the Apostle Paul hoped:

11 and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

We must never lose sight of the reality that this life is only temporary. What we do here, Who we know here, will have great influence on our eternal destiny.

A really good fire, you never want to burn out. (fade away . . .) My sufferings don’t matter and all the pleasures and hardships of my earthly life dims, as they all make way for eternity with him.

And so, I will experience the joy of the eternal flame

Conclusion

Being a Christian is not being good … but being ALIVE in Christ!

(Stetzer: inTurnaround Churches 10 ff, quotes John Mark Terry:)

We have the best materials, media, and methods, but we lack spiritual power. Christians of the apostolic era had non of our advantages; they didn’t even have the New Testament. still the turned the Roman Empire upside down. What impact does your church have . . . "

Lack of Passionate. Spirituality could be a reason the church doesn’t grow. (SHOW BARRELL)

Disobedience, bumbling of challenges, lack of repentance. Jesus did speak tough words to the Ephesus church in the book of Revelation: I am about to spit you out" remember your first love, the height from which you have fallen.

Jena Fleming wrote, "I find myself thinking, When life settles down, I’ll . . . but I should have learned by now that life never settles down for long Whatever I want to accomplish, I must do with life unsettled. p. 15" and that included for her, CONNECTING with Christ, Knowing him, Letting HIM light her Fire.

Our church in the past has had some hard times. It would be easy to stay there, regretting the past, or ignoring our Lord and his power—even our own fault.

But we should not stay there. We can become what they call a “comeback church.”

• Comeback churches are those who first had a spiritual experience that redirected and reenergized their lives . . . we know that is found in Relationship with Jesus

• And it is Jesus who will give us the vision and power to do whatever needs to be done in a broken world to MAKE AN ETERNAL difference for the cause of Christ. (adapted from Stetzer: in Turnaround)

This is why it IS vital that we declare with my friend Dave Ferguson: "I am no longer a Christian. I no longer try to convert people to Christianity . . . I am a Christ follower." (p. 29