Hearing Incredible Stories of God's Grace

I was talking with Vanessa this morning about last night's Girls Beautiful event, and she told me a great story about how God is moving in one lady's life. We are looking for those kinds of stories to use during our upcoming the Power of Hope sermon series. Hope is such a necessity for our lives and there are things that can diminish our hope. If you have a story of God giving you hope in your life, I'd like to hear it. email me at the address found on the website, www.hofchurch.com

Fan into flame

Paul tells Timothy to "fan into flames" the gift that God deposited into his life. Evidently Timothy was dealing with fear because the next verse states, "God hasn't given us a spirit of fear....". Paul is telling Timothy that the answer to problems and difficulties is to turn up the spiritual heat in our lives. After Hurricane Katrina left us a mess in the backyard, we worked hard to clean up. Most stuff was easy to deal with but I had 2 massive stumps that I couldn't deal with. Life can be just like that with storms that leave things we are unable to deal with like the unforgiveness from a bad relationship, fear from some failure, or insecurity because of a lack of love. We often try so hard to deal with the leftovers of a storm but Paul teaches us that it's better to fan the flames of our relationship with Christ. The hotter you are as a believer, then the less the things of this life affect our lives. Are you dealing with some stuff from a storm? Are you wondering how you'll move the immovable out of your life? Forget about the stumps and focus on getting on fire for Christ. How? Give yourself to those things that fan the flame: time in the Word, prayer, and fellowship with other believers. Trust me, this weekend I burned up the stumps and all I had to do was get the fire started and let the fire do the rest. So fan into flames the gift of God that's in you.