Wrong place to run out of gas

In a recent blog article, Esther Irish talked about her hilarious family vacation last year. Esther, like most women, gets anxious when the vehicle starts to get close to empty. Esther’s husband, like most men, are willing to drive many miles beyond empty on the gas gauge. Nearing her childhood home on their family vacation last year, Esther began to get highly concerned about the fuel situation. She repeatedly asked her husband to pull over and get gas at the next interstate exit. No matter how many times she protested, her husband was convinced they could make it all the way to “grandma’s house” before he needed to stop for gas.

You probably figured out by now what happens next. Within a few miles of the family house the vehicle ran out of gas. Esther says that it sputtered and slowed down, as her husband coasted to a stop on the interstate exit. Most of us guys know what it feels like to push a car all the way to the extreme before we pull over and get gas. I suspect that most married women know what it feels like to urge their husband repeatedly to get gas only to see him continue to pass by a gas station after gas station.

Here’s what makes this story awesome. The family ran out of gas at a remote interstate exit-  two miles from the closest gas station. Across the interstate from where they ran out of gas was a state penitentiary. You can only imagine the terror that Esther felt being stranded on the side of the road across the highway from a state prison. The second thing that makes this story even better is the type of vehicle that they were driving. Esther said that her husband was driving their new Ford Transit van. The van has this exciting new feature that tells the driver how many miles before the vehicle is on empty. Meaning that this van showed the exact mileage when Esther’s husband would run out of gas- and yet he managed to run out of gas anyway- directly across the interstate from a prison! [1]

Sometimes us guys are not the sharpest tool in the shed. I suspected you had one of those situations when you couldn’t figure out why the power drill doesn’t work, only to realize that it came unplugged when you were working around the corner.

Most of us learned this when we were children, power tools don’t work very well when they don’t have power. Did you know that life is like this? Life doesn’t work very well when there’s no power. The power that I’m referring to today is not the electrical current that causes your heart to beat. I’m referring to the power to face life without fear. I’m referring to the power to live a full and abundant life. I can’t tell you how many men that I have met who were like a drill without electricity. They’re living a life without power.

God created people in his image. That means we are created to represent God on earth.  God is relational. He is always hanging around with his Son and his Spirit. Therefore, we also were made to be in a relationship. The ultimate reason why God created mankind is to be in relationship with him. It is this relationship that gives life power.

Your life is like a remote-control car with no batteries, if you are not currently in a relationship with God through his Son, Jesus Christ. That car might look cool but it is useless without batteries. The power of the Holy Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is also the power that is at work in Jesus’s people. This is what the Bible teaches in Romans 8:11. The idea in this verse is that your life has no power without the Holy Spirit. You, like the remote-control car, resemble life but you’re not really living unless you have been “born again” by Jesus Christ (John 3:3).

Are you stumbling through life? Are you mindlessly going from home to work to bed daily without really living? Are you living the full and abundant life (John 10:10)? You don’t have to keep living in the dark ages. The reason why Jesus came to earth is to live a perfect life on your behalf. The reason why Jesus died on the cross is to pay the penalty for your sins. However, the story would be incomplete without learning what happened to him next. The man who was dead rose again on Easter Sunday morning. The proof that Jesus really was the son of God was found on Easter morning. The demonstration that he had power over death and the grave was displayed at the empty tomb on Sunday morning. The validation of his message was the fact that the man who claimed to have authority over Heaven and Hell laid down his life and took it back up again on your behalf.

If you’ve living without power, I challenge you to surrendered your soul to Jesus Christ today. He alone can transform you into a new person. You can turn it all over to him in the form of a simple prayer. Pray something like this, “God, I am a sinner. I don’t deserve Heaven.  I believe that’s why Jesus left Heaven and came to earth. I believe that he died on the cross as payment for my sins. I turn today to Christ as my Savior. From this moment forward I will follow to him as my Lord.” If that prayer was sincere we want to hear from you. Please contact us at  info@2citieschurch.com. 

[1] http://www.laughwithusblog.com/family-road-trip-mishaps/