Pilgrim Soldier

This morning the theme of the sermon was “Stir it up”. The idea came from the passage in 2 Timothy 1:6 where Paul says to Timothy that he should stir up, or fan into flame, the gift that was in him through the laying on of hands.

It is very easy for us, as Christians, to get into a routine sort of life that eventually leads us to a faith that grows stagnate. Ours is a faith that cannot stay still. The moment we lose momentum in our daily striving to be more like Christ, is the moment when we start to settle for something less than the fulness that we have in Christ.

As I was reading I realised one thing that really stood out for me in the text; Paul was telling Timothy that he should stir up the gift. That is the real issue here! We need to be prepared to stir up our own faith. It’s not enough for us to simply wait for someone else to fan the embers of our lost passion; we need to do it ourself. We need to find ways to regain our forward momentum in faith, instead of waiting for someone to give us a push. Only if we do this ourselves can we really hope to maintain our faith in the future.

This is something I’ve discovered over the last few weeks. I can no longer expect others to provide the inspiration for me to go forward in faith, I have to do it for myself. I have to have the passion to read the Bible, to study His word and find the depth in it. Yes I can use others to both inform my study and study with, but only if I choose to put my all into it, and to shake myself up, will I really learn anything and hear God’s voice. Only when the Holy Spirit is stirred into action in my heart and I relinquish control to the Spirit can I truly become more like Christ.