God designed people to run on certain fuels. Just as the human body needs a number of different nutrients, the human spirit also needs a number of different “nutrients.” (I use the term “fuels.”) One of the primary fuels is our relationship with God. We could even consider it the first fuel, because the others need to rest on it. For example, love from other people is another primary fuel. Our love-relationship with God is the foundation that our love-relationship rests on. It is not that a relationship with people, without God, will not provide power. But the relationship with God is a key catalyst that magnifies the effects of the relationship with people. The relationship with people is processed better. Purpose is another primary fuel. The relationship with God provides a channel to focus the effects of purpose through.
Sin broke the relationship with God. Before Jesus, we live without this primary fuel. And each person’s heart has holes with no way to fill them. When we give Jesus our allegiance, God comes into relationship with us, and he begins supplying the fuel and filling the holes.
Often, without a God-relationship, people try to use other fuels as the first fuel. This fails, of course. The human body needs both salt and water. But it does no good to overdose on one, in hopes it will make up for a lack of the other.
Even with a God-relationship, people will still try to use other fuels in the wrong way. God made male and female. God made them so that together they might represent him, to display his nature. So, in most cases, he will put one male and one female together, forming this wonderful thing called family. The male/female combination is good. Family is good. But we all know people who believe that what is required for them to achieve eternal bliss, heaven on earth, irrepressible joy, is involvement in their own male/female combination. As anyone who has been married for a while will tell you, it’s a lie. (I am married. I like being married. My wife is wonderful. I cannot conceive of any circumstances that would convince me to become un-married.) But I am beginning to wonder if, overall, there are not more problems as a result of marriage. Many problems occur as a result of relationship issues. More relationships, more problems. Do people have more relationships before or after they get married? And let us understand, problems do not necessarily mean there is animosity between people in a relationship.
Because people misuse these other fuels, when we accept Jesus, when the Holy Spirit takes up residence, a person’s heart can be really messed up. Even with our Father, who loves us, properly applying this first fuel, there is still a lot of cleaning, repairing and restoring to make an individual heart the way it should be.
And some people do not seem to get past this misuse. They do not seem to learn how sold out their Father is for them, for their good and they do not learn how to correctly utilize the first fuel that their Father gives them.
And sometimes, this misuse spreads to things that are not fuel at all.
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