No one will start the fire for you

It is getting colder now. The nights are dropping into the mid to low 40s making the morning pretty cool as well. Yet during the day it is getting up to the high 60s and low 70s. So I am left with a question, do I turn on my heater or nor? With my heater on, I wake up my house (just an over glorified mountain dew can I know, but it is my house) is warm, if I don't, the waking up and getting out of bed process is brought to a whole new level of horrible. I just lay there using anything as an excuse to avoid the wrath of cold that is about to be wrought upon my body. Yet I know no one else is going to turn on my heater for me in the morning. No one else can, my doors are locked, and even if someone was to come in with the quote intent of "I'm just turning on your heater" they are most likely a liar and a thief.

The same is for those times when my affections towards God cool. No one is going to light a fire in my soul for me. I may feel encouraged to rekindle the fire, by a John Piper sermon or by a brother to pursue Christ more, but unless I start making choices to pursue Christ, I will not "make war on my flesh" as Piper says then my light will be dim.

It would be like me calling a friend and talking to them about how I don't want to get out of bed and they urge me to get up and get ready for work, I may feel motivated (especially if I were to call my Dad) but unless I get up, nothing changes. It would be absurd if I blamed my friend for my lack of initiative towards getting up. I would be lazy if I was always  dependent on someone to be pushing me to get out of bed. This is age appropriate for a child but not a man in his mid 20s.

Laundry Mat Love

I know the title of this post sounds a bit odd but stick it out and I know you will be blessed by it.

Let me paint the picture for you:
It is 9:30am on a Saturday, I am at the laundry mat because I am running out of clean clothes and in 140 square feet I just can't find the space for a washer and dryer. I am the only one here except for the young couple I am about to desribe. Now before I say anything else and make myself sound like a creeper the following observations anyone would be able to make, creeper or non creeper. With my disclaimer claimed I will procede. This couple followed me into the laundry mat and proceded to do their laundry, as they put their articles in the machines they talked as if if they were sitting at a candle light dinner and the hum of the dryers was a string quartet. Their love made even the most normal tasks special. As they waited they played rock, paper and item that cuts paper, yet they were not loud about their love and their friendship like so many are these days, their love was their own, no one else seemed to be needed to tell them their love was vaild, they just lived it out.

This is a great picture of the gospel, because marriage is a picture of the gospel, we can gain so much insight into both by looking at the other. Just like this couple's love gave laundry meaning, the gospel also gives meaning to everyday life. Now going to work is not just going to work it is a battle to be won each and everyday. My friendships are no longer for my own pleasure but, they are men to fight beside in our war againist our old nature. They are now my brothers to be praying for. The gospel has now caused the women in my life are not for my own pleasure, they are sister's to be defended and loved because of the gospel. Their love gave meaning to those things things that normally are mundane, just as the Gospel gives meaning to life.

The one thing I hate

The one thing I hate most is aparently prayer. I say this because as human beings we avoid that which we do not like. If I don't like black people then I don't go around black people, If spinach is displeasing to my pilate then I don't eat it, if tabacco makes me cough then I sit in the non smoking section (or pass a law that makes illegal to smoke in resturants). If I find a person who idolizes Glen Beck and never says anything good about life annoying then I find someway to make their idle words not near my then bleeding ears.

With advoidance being my bases of what a person finds displeasing then in my case (so please infer I am stating that not all of the above statements are of my personal
hates, I do like spinach ,mostly uncooked though, I do like people of other ethnic groups ,one black woman I like a lot) I really hate to pray. Not that I attend anti prayer rallies, or make signs protesting personal pray, but when I go to pray, I do everything to avoid it. Like write a blog post ... maybe I should go... bye...

1 thess 5:16-18

Be in prayer constantly because it is the will of God for us in Christ Jesus.