When your fire goes out

Read 2 Timothy 1 for your reference. (Paul writes from a Roman dungeon to encourage Timothy.)

Are you as fired up for God as you used to be? Has something happened? Jesus and the Holy Spirit haven't changed.

So why should that burning flame inside of you die out? God intends for that flame to burn brightly everyday until the final day.

We should possess greater faith and greater devotion to Christ because we have watched God work and built up years of faith. To cool off with the Gospel or God or Christ, you cannot do it. Somethings happened when that happens, something is going on when you cool off.

Sometimes it begins with a tragedy in someones' life and they are overwhelmed by it and they cease to pray and read the Bible instead of throwing it all on God. Many things can happen to get their attention instead of driving them to God

If satan can get you to think about something else other than God, tells you there is something new over here and something new over there and God isn't involved in those things, it is only a deception by satan.

Your flames gone out, there are ashes, doesn't mean you're gone though.

How do you detect this in your life? How would you know this is happening in your life? If you can't say you are full of joy and you are excited by Christ and his role in your life, if you can't say it to yourself, ask yourself why not. Christ doesn't change.

What are the evidences that you have changed or cooled off?
1. They begin to neglect the word of God. what wood is to a fireplace, the word of God is to your Christian life.
2. You still pray but you notice this difference, they are the same words, but now instead of feeling that God is listening, you feel that your words are going out there but they are not going anywhere
3. Your church attendance may be irregular

When you begin to cool off you begin to compromise, its natural. You compromise your basic belief system but the truth is you are slipping away. Your flame is flickering. you used to pray for people, your priest and those around you. When you begin to drift from your relationship with the Lord, your don't have the joy and its replaced by that worry, doubt and fear, that's how you begin to act towards other people. You worry, doubt and fear. You doubt that God can hear, heal, listen, answer prayers and love. When you begin to believe God isn't listening and nothing is going right and you have no encouragement, you begin to not listen to others and believe they are never right and that no one can encourage you or help you.

DONT LET THIS HAPPEN!

That sense of confidence and assurance isn't there anymore, it is replaced by worry, doubt and fear.

God hasn't given you the spirit of fear. when someone starts feeling like this, they cease to pay attention to the continuous promptings of the Holy Spirit. Every believer has within them the person of the Holy Spirit and it is the Spirits' responsibility to prompt us in our decisions and to guide us and to encrouage us. It is His business to know where we are spiritually.

When you have friends come over and its cold outside and you have a nice glowing burning fireplace, they walk straight to the fire. Why? There is something about fire that attracts people, 'isn't this fantastic? isn't this warm?' They don't want to step away from that fire because of its' warmth. When you leave that fire with only ashes and no flame, no body goes to that fire, no one is drawn to it.

Do you wonder why people aren't drawn to you? Do you wonder why people don't ask you to pray for them? Do you wonder why people don't confide in you? Maybe it's because they don't see anything, or feel anything, warm, righteous or Godly in you. Your fire has gone out, disaster.

You need steps. How do you get anywhere in your christian life? With steps, you have to take steps. God wants all of us to glow in our life and He wants to be in us.

HOW CAN YOU FIX IT?
These are the steps.

1. Know where you are now
2. Recall where you were. when you loved His word and the Gospel hymns. what was it like then?
3. Repent. (see 3.1)
4. Re-focus your attention. you are where you are now because you originally focussed on yourself instead of others and God
5. Get into the word of God. (see 5.1)

3.1 Repent even if you don't know exactly what it is, "God something has happened in my life". Repent for not spending the time with God, priorities aren't right, love has grown cold. There has to be repentance. Repent just the things that aren't what they ought to be. Only YOU know what you used to feel when you truly loved and were focussed on God. If I have neglected my family and my church and my God, have I given in to sin?

5.1 Find a short book in the Bible, begin to read so that you can say you have accomplished it BUT read it like this: ask the Lord to speak to your heart, make yourself open to what He wants to tell you. It might be a conviction, but remember He is after righteousness, so that you can find peace in your life. It is an act of grace, mercy and kindness from God. He is paying attention to you and raises a thought or a passage from a page and sends it to your heart. It is God loving you!

You have the time!

Ask God to speak to your heart. Thats how you should pray, you don't have to ask for a 'thing' just ask for a relationship with Him. You want to hear Him.

Very important: you need to also be involved in someones' life, give yourself to somebody, so that you may pour your life into someone else because up until now you have only been thinking and focussing on yourself. This is why you have ended up like this to begin with. How I feel, how I'm hurt, what I want, my goals etc selfishness isn't from God, the more we think of ourself and not others we become introverted and the world has all sorts of things and entertainment which makes us focus away from God and thats why His word is important.

Perserverance. What are you absorbed in today? What has really grabbed your attention?

Rely on the Holy Spirit to guide you. You need to add fuel to your fire! Fuel the flame of your devotion to God.
When you look at the fire within your own life, has it dwindled down to cold ashes or is it burning brightly?

God wants to make you a light so that you can shine for Him in this life.

Remember, we often light one flame using another flame. You can re-ignite your own flame using someone elses', but you need to be open to that and trust God.