I'm thinking about smoke this morning, based on one devotional that pointed out James 4:14 that we are "a vapor" and pass away quickly. I was thinking that it would be better if Christians were to be more like the smoke that clung to the battlefields of the American Civil War "back in the day" of the 1860s. I'm listening to the soundtrack of "Gettysburg" and have been playing "Civil War Generals 2" these last several days, so warfare is on my mind.Actually, warfare is pretty much always on my mind, given the fact that we're in Enemy Territory, are surrounded like the paratroopers of "Band of Brothers" at Bastogne, and we're supposed to be the sweet smell of Christ to those around us...a smell, by the way, that for some is like the aroma of a good cigar that identifies us to people even around the corner of a building when they can't see us, while to others it's the stench coming off Old Smelly.
Smoke always has its origin in fire. The Spirit is the fire within us we're not suppose to quench. How do we avoid putting up smoke screens with our lives instead of being a cloud of incense wafting out of the temple where the Spirit dwells? Maybe that's what Paul was thinking about when he said not to quench the Spirit in I Thessalonians 5:19. On the other hand, are we to be sending smoke signals to those around us in order to give them the Message? Will the uninitiated know what we're saying? NOPE...the Spirit's got to do His job to "clear away the smoke" the Devil has been blowing for millennia!
Got a light?
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