March 21st, 2017

              Keeping Your Spiritual Tank Full
 
Psalm 63:1, O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is;
 
About 5 years ago while I was pastoring in MS. I went into town to run a few errands. On my way back home it was very late and I was tired, I stopped by a service station to fill my tank up. I removed my gas cap and inserted the gas pump into the tank, swiped my card through the reader. The Card reader on the pump was broke, so I went inside to pay, and made the transaction, had my usual brief cordial conversation with the attendant and walk out to the car and hung up the pump, replaced the fuel cap, drove away home. 
 
Suddenly, a few minutes later, my fuel light came on. At first, I thought the fuel light indicator was broken.  Then I realized what I had done. I failed to refuel. I argued to myself, no way! How is this possible. I purposefully went to the gas station for a fill-up however, my mind was on other things and I failed to fill up. It was the first time this had happened.
 
My dismay is similar to what we do in our own Christian lives when it comes to keeping our spiritual tanks full. Sometimes we let them drain out although we have recently left the “Spiritual” service station – church service. Sometimes we get so busy in life – we can be at church physically but mentally we are miles away. We miss out on receiving what the Lord has for us.
 
All of us want to be powerful, effective believers. But don’t forget how easy it is to drift away. This doesn’t mean that you will lose your salvation, but rather it means that you will lose that desire if you don’t regularly spend time alone in God’s Word to refill your spiritual tank.
 
Time spent in God's Word gives us the spiritual fuel we need to live as He has called us to. To be filled with the Holy Spirit we must be like a car pulling up to a filling station to receive a full tank of gasoline.

• Once we are filled up, do we park our vehicle and sit there the rest of the week?
• No, we go to a filling station to get what we need to leave the station.
• We have a destination & need full tanks to get there.
• A problem occurs when we leave the station.
• As soon as we walk out of our Sunday worship, people begin to burn up that fuel inside them.
• When we leave our church, we are full of God’s presence & glory from our time in worship.
• The key word is early….early in the day.

The worst thing we can do is to wait until next Sunday to fill-up. We need to drink continually (daily) to stay filled.