Gas Station

It is just one of those chores that we have to do every week or so. There was a time many years ago that we could just pull up to the station and it would be done for us but as we grew older...we as a society have come to accept the responsibility of filling up our cars ourselves. I stood there at the pump yesterday just looking around watching cars go by and waiting for a full tank of gas...and the comparison came to mind that there are many similarities to filling up a car and filling up my mind and heart with fuel to give me better performance.

It is one thing to be out of gas...a car just has no ability to go...but to be filled with junk gas just interrupts the performance of the car and had potential to be harmful to an engine....(heresy..like I know so much about cars(. You could probably write the rest of this devotional yourself...but here it is.

God has created us to need high grade fuel....for high grade performance. not
some off brand substitute. But how many times do I fill my mind and body up out of convenience, out of impulse, out of immediate gratification, out of envy, out of frustration,out of need to succeed etc. without any real regard for what God wants of me which is right and best. We read junk books, we hear junk talk, we follow junk leads, we accept junk practices, we adopt junk morals...and we settle for less...than great.

We can sputter along with a junk filled tank....but we are wasting the capacity we have been given for high performance. So much of our ability to live life at its best lies in how we associate to God. For example there is current car commercial that kind of shows you people in a robotic mode...choosing cars that others have told them are most like their personalities....and then a new car hits he road and breaks them out of the monotony they have been emerged in...and they are able to be free to choose a car that has vitality, looks, performance and the whole nine yards. I can't tell you the make of the car though I have seen the commercials over and over....but that is kind of like the way we tend to be. We get in a robotic mode and only God can shake us free from that.. We have to see him at a glance and then seek Him out.

God has the ability to fill us up with his love, His strength and His sense of adventure, His beauty, His appreciation for life, His purposes that he has made us for...and most of all the fuel that God fills us with is high performance not in a busy, hurry and get it doen sense, but in a steady, confident, peaceful approach to a journey that he has set forth for us to travel.

Next time you are standing at a gas station....think about what is filling you up..or who is filling you up...are you seeking God's thoughts of truth and promise and hope or accepting junk stuff from a want to be source?

Does your fuel hose come from God ..and have a lasting effect on your performance....or from a substitute fuel line that leaves you quickly riding on fumes. We can land on a robotic line of least initiave...or allow God to summon us to a higher level of rich living.....based on His values and His standards.

Romans 15:13
May the God of hope FILL you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Dear Lord, You have created us to be filled by your Holy Spirit....and to perform based on what is within us. Fill us with your grace, your power,your wisdom, your forgiveness, your mercy and above all your love....and let us run on your fuel and not be satisfied to accept an imitation. Amen

Praise God wherever you are or whatever situation he has allowed you to be in...for His glory will shine through.

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