Daily writing prompt

What advice would you give to your teenage self?

View all responses

Faith’s like fire. Don’t let it be like ice.

Whoever believes in Jesus shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16) What does it mean to believe in Jesus? Faith advice: Don’t let your faith be like ice.

If you have faith, it’s like fire. It can burst into roaring flames, or it can fade into the faintest flicker. It will all depend on how you tend to it. “For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you.” (1 Timothy 1:6)

“Be fervent in spirit.” (Romans 12:11) Faith can be a bright light in your eyes, or it can slip away from your sight. If you aren’t careful, “the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things” will slowly snuff out your faith. (Mark 4:19)

Like a fire your faith needs to be fed fuel. You need to faithfully work on it and nurture it. “Faith without works is dead.” (James 2:17)

If you go all out always seeking God first, (Matthew 6:33) faith’s fire will continually blaze in your heart and spread all around. It will ignite spiritual fires in other people. However, if you focus on yourself instead of on God, your faith will little by little go out.

Ponder with never-ending awe the presence of the risen Jesus. Throughout each day keep your attention focused on Him. Then your heart will stay hot with God’s fire. (Psalm 39:3) The more you listen to Jesus speak in your heart, the more your heart will burn within you and the better you’ll understand the Scriptures. (Luke 24:32)

Read the Bible over and over until God’s message becomes an all-consuming flame inside of you that you can’t hold back. (Jeremiah 20:9) Let Jesus continually live in and overflow from within you as the Holy Spirit and fire. (Matthew 3:11) Train yourself to always focus on and be led by the Spirit’s inner promptings. (Romans 8:14)

When passionate burning faith fades, churches wither away. When God’s heart-consuming spiritual fire has dimed into a faint flicker in the darkness, a church is dead. (2 Timothy 3:5)