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Showers for the Tender Harvest--"Let my teaching fall like showers on tender plants." - Deuteronomy 32:2
Don't Offer Cold Fire
by Jill Nelson (Jill's bio)
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Skill without passion is cold fire.
Do not offer God cold fire.
God does not anoint skill. He anoints passion.
Passionate love for Him!
In I Samuel 16: 14 – 23, King Saul was tormented by an evil spirit. He knew his only relief would be in the presence of God. Yet he was incapable of finding God on his own any more. A musician must be summoned. Not just any musician. There must have been many of them at the court of the king. None were chosen. They had to send for David.
Why?
Because David played with passion inspired by countless hours of intimate fellowship with God. In vs. 17, Saul asks for someone who plays “well.” The Hebrew word here is yatab (yaw-tab), meaning “to make well.” David played healing music . . . powerful music . . . passionate music full of God's anointing.
In children's ministry, we cannot rest on past accomplishments or rely on developed skills. Such things are never enough. The supernatural move of God in our hearts and in the hearts of those to whom we minister is necessary if we are to make a lasting impact on the lives of children. We must continually “fan into flame the gift of God” within us. II Tim. 1: 6 (NIV)
If we do not keep our passion for Jesus hot, we will “wax cold,” as Jesus prophesied in Matthew 24: 12 that many would do in the last days. The word used for “cold” here is psucho, meaning “to breath, voluntarily but gently – by implication, a reduction of temperature by evaporation. To chill. To cool by blowing.”
Picture ourselves huddled with our steaming cup of hot chocolate, blowing on it, blowing on it, waiting to drink until it becomes tepid. We take a sip and grimace. The beverage has lost its savor and comfort. We are likely to dump it out.
The loss of spiritual heat takes place in the same way. All that is required is time away from fellowship with our Lord. The world will blow on us aplenty, and the heat will fade. Sometimes so gradually that the process may be nearly unnoticeable. A very dangerous spiritual condition.
Jesus said in the same prophetic verse that the cause of the cooling off would be “the increase of wickedness.” Are we exposing ourselves to so much of the world's ways that fear of the future has invaded our hearts? Are our hearts calloused so that we are no longer grieved by what the world deems acceptable?
Our Lord addressed several churches in the book of Revelation that have bearing on loss of passion for God.
In Revelation 2: 3 – 4, He commends the church at Ephesus for their zeal, but rebukes them for their lack of love. He warns them to return to their first passion or be removed.
Zeal without love = cold fire. God hates it.
In Revelation 2: 13 – 14, Jesus commends the church at Pergamum for their faithfulness to doctrine, while condemning their moral laxity. A reduction in passion will admit the spirit of compromise. The Lord warns these people to repent or feel the bite of his two-edged sword.
Doctrine without holiness = cold fire. God hates it.
In Revelation 3: 14 – 18, Jesus finds nothing to commend in the proud, blind, self-satisfied Laodicean church. They have left their first love and compromised their doctrine until they have become a tasteless lump. Good for nothing except to spit out.
Without passion, there will be no compassion. No compassion = no power in children's ministry . . . or anywhere else.
When we are passionately in love with Jesus, the pull of other things fade, and we stay on the course God has set for us. We will not grow weary or turn aside. One day, we will be able to say with Paul, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness . . .” II Tim. 4: 7 – 8 (NIV)
Copyright 2003, Jill Nelson. All Rights Reserved. Used by permission.
| About Jill Nelson: Children have been the focus of Jill Nelson's ministry for twenty years. She and her husband have four--two boys, two girls--all teenagers. (Prayers, please.) Jill supervises the children's ministry at her local church and delights in writing her own material. Her heart is to glorify God by guiding children into a powerful personal relationship with Him. E-mail Jill |
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