Time To Get Stoked

My wife and I have had colds recently. It has been said that you feed a cold and starve a fever. I doubt that would show up in a PDR. There is a spiritual application of this.

Matthew 24:11 And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.

12 And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.

When most of us were first saved, we were on fire because the fire of God was fresh within us. We testified everywhere we went. We carried tracts and pocket bibles with us with same diligence as we now do our cell phones. We were at church every time the doors opened. We volunteered for anything. We would have charged Hell with a squirt gun. We made many vows like Peter of undying love and service.

Then stuff happened. Maybe we did too much in our zeal and got a tad burned out. Jobs and family started demanding more time. We saw people go by the wayside. We got burned by a couple of false prophets. We saw other people's hypocrisy or flaws and not our own. Someone died unexpectedly or we prayed fervently to no avail. The world is off the chain and we feel like we cannot make a difference.

Here a little. There a little. The pastor's sermons got too long when we would have stayed for hours to hear the Word. The choir is too loud or they are off key when they used to make us shout or weep. We read the Word now and then when we used to stay up late to read and had a copy at work so we could read as we ate lunch. Sister Sue's hugs were something to look forward to and now we avoid her and Bro. Bob's smiling handshake. Church attendance is hit and miss when we wanted to live in the church in the beginning.

We started to feed the things that made us cold and we starved the Holy fever that had us hot for ministry. While the the old proverb may work for the common cold, it is the reverse for spiritual coldness. We need to feed the fever and it will starve the cold.

Revelation 2:2 I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars:

3 And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted.

4 Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.

5 Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.

It has been said if you are no different today than you were a year ago, you are backslidden. There is no staying in stagnation. You are either getting out of the swamp or sinking deeper in the quicksand.

It will be hard. If you have not ridden a bike in twenty years, you are not going to get on and do a hundred mile benefit ride. We will have to push ourselves and ask God to push us when do not have the zeal to push on. When I was still working, there were days I just jumped out of bed and other days I needed a crane or a cattle prod to move me. Yet, I got up on those days because I had a responsibility to my family to make sure the bills were paid and they were not hungry, naked and on the street.

I remember grunting through eight hours on the loading dock with somewhere between a 102 and 104 degree temperature because I could not afford to be without a paycheck. God got me because I came home and collapsed into bed. Even in the ministry, I remember sitting on the front waiting to be called to the pulpit to preach feeling like I would surely die before I got there. Once in the pulpit, it was like I was healed and when I was walking down that "feel like I'm afixin' to die" feeling came back. The Pastor was out of town and God allowed me to fulfill my responsibility because I did not shirk it.

We need to develop that same kind of resolution about our relationship to God and the Body because we cannot afford to have a weak relationship in these perilous times. If we start acting responsibly about our relationship with God He will bless us.

We need to repent and do the first works. Think of what you were doing the first six months after salvation. Make a list, if you need to do so. Then pick two of those things and start doing them again. Tell God, though He already knows, that you are tired of being cold and you want His power to do the first works and anything else He might add to the list or subtract. If you were saved at 20 and you are now 80, He may not want you back on the church baseball team. He may replace that with two other things.