Running on Empty?

Romans 5:5 “…because God’s love has been poured into your hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

What fuels your daily actions?  If we are honest with ourselves, I think most of us are motivated by seeking approval.  How do I look?  What should I say? Where should I go?  Who should I follow?  We answer these questions every day, all day, in light of how much love and acceptance we will receive.  If doing x means that I am accepted, then I will do x.  If believing y means that I will be loved, then y is what I will believe.  We spend our days, really our entire lifetime, trying to fill our spiritual gas tanks with approval  and love from others.  However, human love and acceptance is not the high grade fuel, that God intended for us.

God made us to function best by being fueled through His perfect love only.  We are like a high tech European sports car, you know, the kind that requires the highest grade of gasoline, the most expensive option at the gas pump!  If you put the lesser quality fuel in the higher quality engine, it becomes clogged with the dirt and impurities of the lesser fuel.  Our hearts are no different.  If we seek to run our lives on the fuel of human love and acceptance, we too will get clogged up from the impurities contained in imperfect, human love:  jealousy, unmet expectations, lust, just to name a few.  Only God’s pure and perfect love, the love that is never jealous, that seeks only to give and expects nothing in return is good enough to fuel our daily actions.  God’s love is the highest grade, the most expensive, but we don’t have to worry about paying the high price of God’s love because Jesus already paid the bill for us.  We can pull up to the spiritual gas pump and fill our hearts with the pure and perfect love of God for free!

Today, as you start your spiritual engine, check your spiritual gas tank.  If your running low, fill your heart through prayer, worship, and the Word of God so that you may accomplish the task that God has before you today without running on empty!