2 Timothy 1:6,7 “I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God… for God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love, and of self-discipline.”
On a spectrum with ‘corpse’ at one end and ‘fanatic’ at the other, where do you think you’d be in terms of zeal for serving Christ? It’s an interesting question. I suspect if we then substitute ‘sharing’ for ‘serving’, many of us will modify our positioning further towards the corpse end, because we are so reticent to actually speak about him. God certainly doesn’t want fanatics, but as one of my mentors told me in my younger days: “Fanatics are better than corpses, because you can cool the former down, but you can’t warm up corpses.”
Paul urged Timothy to fan into flame the gift of God in him – not to be timid, not to feel inadequate, but to blaze brightly for Jesus. That’s what he wants for us too. Ross Patterson wrote: “God wants to set his people on fire by his Holy Spirit, not just so that we can arrange church firework displays to entertain the saints, however spectacular they may be. He wants us to share the warmth of that fire with a dying world.”
William Lloyd Garrison was a great abolitionist. He was the publisher of an anti-slavery newspaper called the Liberator. He was an angry man, burning with indignation towards the wicked institution of trafficking human lives. He hated slavery with every fibre of his being. On one occasion his best friend, Samuel May, tried to calm him down: “Oh, my friend, try to moderate your indignation and keep more cool. Why, you are all on fire.” Garrison replied: “Brother May, I have need to be all on fire, for I have mountains of ice around me to melt.”
Well, there’s plenty of indifference and apathy around us that needs melting. Maybe you feel a sense of shame at where you are on the above spectrum – or maybe indifference? Speak to God about it.
Lord, rekindle my fire today. Amen!
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