A daily devotional moment by Chris Garcia
The Fire of God comes from God. You cannot produce fire by yourself. Number one, you must understand that the Fire of God cannot be replicated. It is not something that comes from you. God is the one that provides the Fire. The Fire of His Presence. The zeal. The passion. The desire for Him. The desire for Souls. It is not something that you can muster. It is not something that you can make happen. It is not something that you earn. Rather it is something that is cultivated. There is a difference between trying to earn something and trying to cultivate something. Cultivation is different because cultivation implies that you are doing your part to cultivate and till the soil. But the increase and the growth come from God. Let me put it to you this way. In my backyard, I have lots of flowers, fruits, and vegetables. But what I have come to realize is that the seed is not mine. The seed comes from God. My part is to till the soil and to cultivate the seed in the ground and water it. But the one who plants and does the watering for it, is not anything. But the One Who brings increase is God. So I cannot make a plant grow. I cannot make a plant spring to life. But what I can do is yield to the laws of cultivation. That if I cultivate and I sow, and I water, and I wait, and I trust the process. The growth will naturally occur because it is God-given. How does that relate to the spiritual life? How does that relate to things of God? Much and every way. The Scripture calls us to sow to the spirit. For they that sow to the flesh, will from the flesh reap corruption. They that sow to the spirit will reap life everlasting, will reap the life of the Spirit in them. You see, the ground is your heart, the cultivation and the breaking up of the follow ground and the watering of the seed is your part. The seed is given to you by God. But your part is to yield and to cultivate. Your part is to prepare your heart, water, and till. What does that look like spiritually? That means that my job is to offer my life daily and continually before the presence of God. My job is to yield to the Gospel. To yield to the Holy Spirit. To yield to what God wants to do. By offering myself daily as a living sacrifice. This is not work. This is cultivation.
The work is done by the Spirit and the Spirit does the work. The Spirit is the one that produces the yield of the fruit of the Spirit and the fire of God in your life. Your job is to yield, and the way you yield, is you need to prepare your soil. You need to take the step to prepare and till the ground. You need to cultivate your garden. There are two things that go hand and hand in your spiritual life. Dependency and discipline. Discipline and dependency. Let me explain. Discipline is you doing your part and being consistent in doing your part. Dependency is you depend on God for that. The spiritual things feed off those two realities. If you do not pray, you will not learn dependency and if you were not learning dependency, you will not be learning to be disciplined on how to pray. They come together, they feed one another. This is why the Scripture says to draw near to God and God will draw near to you. There is a part that God has already done. That He has already accomplished. That He has already established. But now He is waiting on you to yield to that. Just like we read in Exodus 3. The Scripture says that Moses is near the Mount where he sees the fires that are not consuming the bush. The Bible says that the moment he turns, and the Scripture says that the Lord was waiting for him to turn. When he turned, the Lord began to minister to him. The Lord began to speak to him. The Lord began to speak purpose and destiny and fulfillment of the purposes and plan and destiny of God for Moses and the people of God and I find that interesting that the Lord actually literally waited for him to turn. You see, God did His part. God provided the fire. God provided the bush. God provided that moment. But God waited for Him to turn. Why? Because God did His part and now Moses had to do his part.
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