The Swamp will put out your fire

 

1 Thessalonians 5:19-21

Moving to the Texas hill country has been such a blessing, and what came with the blessing were many lessons.  Our first blessing was finding the lot we now live on and our piece of property was so full of cedar trees that it was impossible to know what we had bought.  The lessons started as Jan and I began to remove those evil cedars, first we had to learn how to walk and pull brush on a hill.  Sounds easy, but not for two people who had lived on flat land.  Then we were required to make sure that by sundown our fires were out, and the blessing was that every cedar we burnt was one less of those water, stealing thieves gone from the acre and a half.  Jan, who I called Juanita and I was known as Roberto, learned many lessons while clearing lot 122 in the Vistas.  A big one is that a large burn pile does not go out quickly in fact we learned that you may cover it with dirt and a week later it will still have hot embers.  It is difficult to put out a large burn pile when you have no water source. 

But what if we had built in the swamp area of East Texas, and the trees we were burning were pines and you were building your fire on wet ground, and it rained every time you got your fire going, then it might be much easier to put out the fire, in fact it might be hard to keep it going.  As spiritual people that may be a better analogy of what is being said in verse 19 about quenching the Spirit of God living in us.  The world system is much like the swamps, it is designed to put out our fire, and then add your version of flesh to the mix, flesh that has learned to get its requirements met outside of dependence on the Spirit of God, and you end up with wet wood, or better said quenching the Spirit of God in your life.

Yes, the Christian life is life in a swamp that’s trying to keep you from being a torch in your family, office, and your neighborhood.  The question often comes; but how, how can anyone engage the swamp and the self-serving flesh that wants to be first, or wants to look good, or perform outside of dependence on the Holy Spirit of God?  Part of the answer is found in studying the Scriptures and asking the Spirit of God to control your mind.  In verses 20 thru 22, it states, “Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good.  Abstain from every form of evil.”  It has been helpful in my spiritual growth to come to some clear understanding about this book we call the Bible.  This is what I’ve come to understand, God does not lie and His word is true.  In 2 Peter 1:19-21, gives this account of God’s word; “And we have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation.  For no prophecy ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice