Outside, it's winter and cold. Inside, the thermostat is set to a "warm" 66 degrees. Today, though, that's not warm enough for my wife or my oldest son! A degree or two can make a big difference they tell me.
Set at either 66 or 68, the thermostat automatically kicks on the heat whenever the temperature drops a single degree. Our spiritual life doesn't come equipped with a thermostat like that.
When the temperature of our walk with God grows cold, the heat of the Holy Spirit and the warmth of God's presence doesn't automatically kick on. When we begin to faint under the intense heat of temptation and trial, the air conditioning and cool air of the Spirit doesn't automatically begin to blow across our heart.
Faith is activity. It doesn't involve you and I passively doing nothing while we wait on God to do everything. Faith is looking to God, running towards God, and taking hold of God.
Moses wanted to die (Numbers 11:10-15), David was hunted (1 Samuel 24, 26), Elijah was terrified and asked God to kill him (1 Kings 19:1-8), Jeremiah wished he'd never been born (Jeremiah 20:14-18), Paul lost all hope of staying alive (Acts 27:13-20). They each had faith in God and yet God sent each of them back into their circumstances! The nerve!
Although God didn't rescue them from their circumstances, He rescued them through their circumstances. In other words, their external circumstances would eventually change, but each of their hearts would first be refined, and rescued from an internal place of trust in God that if left unattended and uncultivated would never grow and turn into a flourishing garden.
Though temperatures change externally, internally we learn to keep our heart warmed and/or refreshed in God.
How?
Along the path of our faith and obedience, what God requires (asks) of us, He also provides (answers) for us. He did this, first, by securing everything for us in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ ; second, by sending us the Holy Spirit who brings and provides us with all that Jesus secured.
This doesn't involve the Spirit living our life for us, but Him living through us and us living our lives through Him. It is Jesus Christ who lives in us by the Spirit, and the life we now live we live by the Spirit of God to the glory of Jesus who gave Himself for us!
In the end, the will of God is not the comfort of man, but the knowledge and glory of God. Our joy is only found there, in Him. To have faith, to trust, to have hope, to obey God is how we come, not to secure what we think we need or want, but to receive what we really need and what God really wants: to see, hear and know Him more.
A knowledgable life is far more satisfying than a comfortable life.
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