DUST OR SMOKE?

   Something that we need to learn to do is to tell the difference between smoke and dust. When I was a kid, one of the games that we would play was war. And our favorite place to play war was in our garden. In our garden there were these large clumps or clods of dirt. We would pick them up and throw them, and they would explode in a cloud of dust. And we would throw these clods of dirt, which we would imagine to be hand grenades, imagining that the dust they would make would be smoke.

   We look at so much of what is taking place in our churches today, and all we see is dust. Oh, to be sure, it looks like smoke from a distance. And it might fool some people, and make them think it is real. But there is no fire. God is not present in what we are doing. And we are about as effective in our ministry as we were as boys playing war. We are playing games, out of contact, out of touch, with reality.

   How we need the fire of God to fall. How we need the glory of God to be burning in our midst. How we need tob e consumed by the desire to see God's fire burning brightly and hotly in our lives.