Get Your Fire Roaring

2 Timothy 1.6,7

We must get our inner fire roaring so that we are stirred up to fight for the Church

Timothy had been entrusted with something of great value and he must not be the one to let it fall into disuse. Shame on any of us who live in the benefits passed onto us by those who have walked in the faith of Christ, if we ourselves become careless and uncommitted. It is like the young man who inherits the wealth and resources earned by his father who worked hard and built up a profitable business. But then the son indulges himself in the inheritance and fails to pay attention to the business. Before he realises what has happened, the business fails to grow, the resources are used up and he ends up bankrupt. We have to use the good resources of faith and knowledge passed on to us by faithful people. The faith of Timothy's immediate maternal family as well as the investment that Paul had put into his life, were all good reasons why he should fan into a flame the spiritual gift God had entrusted to him. For this reason (that is, the fact that you have been blessed by faith and knowledge taught to you by the word and example of others) I remind you to fan into a flame the gift of God.

Paul describes the gift of God as a spark in Timothy that needs fuel and oxygen to make it into a roaring fire. When you are lighting a fire in difficult circumstances – perhaps with a flint or by rubbing sticks together – you have to keep your focus on the spark. It is only tiny, but it is the start of your roaring fire. You have to prepare very fine fibres to receive the spark so that it catches. You have to gently blow on it when it smoulders so that a combination of the fuel (the fibres, and the kindling) and the oxygen will cause the spark to enlarge into a hungry flame that demands more and more and more wood.

Jesus said: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be satisfied. This is a very telling statement, because it also gives the reason why there is such a lack of satisfaction in our lives. We are restless, anxious, lacking in peace when we are starved of righteousness. Righteousness is the quality of God's character revealed to us in Jesus Christ. Those who do not hunger and thirst to eat and drink Christ's life are left with a hollow hunger that they try to feed with spiritual potato chips. And they always remain unsatisfied. How do you eat and drink Christ? How do you go for righteousness like a hungry and thirsty person? By feeding on his Word. By praying about everything. By looking at, thinking about, and deciding on everything according to what God has revealed in the Bible.

You hunger and thirst for righteousness by using faith – that is, stepping into every situation deliberately depending on what God has promised to do for you in Jesus Christ. In all these ways, we are fanning the spark of spiritual life God gave us, into a flame. We are hunting and hungering and thirsting after righteousness – God's good life – in Christ – for us.

Timothy had a gift of God. It was the faith that was passed on to him effectively by his mum and nana. But Paul was also talking about the work that that faith would accomplish. Faith is never an abstract thing, like a 'vibe' or an 'attitude'.

Faith is a decisive investment of ourselves in concrete, real actions proposed by God. God has works for us to do. Without faith it is impossible to please God, so these works prepared by God (your life's work) can't be done without faith. In fact, everything that is not of faith is sin (Romans 14.23). That means that all thoughts, feelings and actions that do not spring up from the soil of confidence in God are sins.