by Jonathan Painter
I am by no means a mechanic, but this much I know, that the engine in your car has to have oil. If you run the engine without oil then it will more than likely ruin your engine. Preventative maintenance of periodical checks will help you keep a gage on how your oil level is and when you need to add more.
Undoubtedly, as you are reading this, you are thinking that everybody knows what I have stated above. It is a simple fact indeed, but how often do we neglect the oil in our car. Most of us would have to give a little shameful chuckle if we were asked when we last checked our oil level. How much more shameful would it be if we had to outwardly answer when the last time we checked our spiritual oil level? Allow me to explain.
The Holy Spirit is often pictured throughout the Scriptures by oil. In our daily efforts we attempt to run our spiritual engine without the oil of the Holy Spirit and we find ourselves content doing the work of God without the power of God. We are faithful to go soul winning, but we are running a dry motor. We run our bus routes, but we do it on a dry engine. We stand and preach or teach, but without the oil needed to give it power. I fear many of us run our engines dry, and eventually our engine dies and we fall out of the work of God altogether. We used to go soul winning, and we used to be leaders in our church, but because we ran our engine too dry we broke down and died spiritually.
My friend, every morning we have got to get up and check our oil level by getting in the Word of God and spending time in prayer. Just as it is such a simple thing to keep your oil level up on your car’s engine, so is it with our spiritual oil level. Do you want your engine to be full? Simply take the time to ask God to fill you up to where you need to be at spiritually. This oil that He will give you more of is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will fill you and empower you to be more effective in your daily performance in His work. Your soul winning will be more effective, and your peaching will be powerful, because you check your oil with God.
The main problem is that we consider ourselves to be young preachers of action! This is good, but we are young preachers of action with short attention spans. We sit down and start reading our Bibles but we can’t handle to read more than a chapter or two and spend five minutes in prayer because we have to move on to a new adventure in our ministry. An anxious driver that never checks preventative maintenance because he just has got to get going, eventually won’t be going anywhere at all. Let’s not be too anxious to rev-up our engines for the “glory of God” without first filling it with the oil of God, The Holy Spirit!
by Jonathan Painter
Article submitted to Independentbaptist.com