Burn, Baby, Burn! Fuel for Your Fire

For fire to be maintained, attention and fuel are required. How's the fire of your altar?

We live in a frenetic and fragmenting culture so it is easy to allow things to distract and damp down the flame - and that is very, very dangerous.

It's not that we lack opportunities for ignition: a powerful worship service, a stirring message, a brief 'pop-up' moment when we catch it.

These all function like strike-anywhere matches to light us up.

But match sticks won't keep the fire hot - no matter how many there may be.

Last night at The Deck, we dug into the fuel sources of gratitude and thankfulness.

Scripture is drenched with directives about living with deep thanks and science is rife with research on all the benefits of it.

So what's the problem? Why aren't we constantly thankful and overflowing with an attitude of gratitude?

That is not easy when the cultural atmosphere is persistently pervaded with toxic entitlement: Hard to be grateful for anything if you're convinced you're entitled to it.

Don't think that's an issue for you? Guess again. Even if we are generally grateful, the devil is, literally, in the details.

Attend to the small things - practice deliberate focus on the way E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G is a gift of His abundance.

Remember that gratitude is the attitude but thanksgiving is the activation.

Together, they form a constant supply to feed the fire of our altars.

Burn, baby, burn!

Happy day of Giving Thanks!

Stephen

PS: No Flight Deck next Thursday. Use the time to simply be thankful... and nap. LOL

Replay of this Deck teaching is on YouTube.

Replay of the entire Flight Deck is on Facebook.