Staying Fired Up Pt. 2

By Verna Del Turco

In the last issue, I shared with you about an article I read many years ago about the late Dr. Lester Sumrall. He was asked the question, “Dr. Sumrall, how do you maintain the energy to do all that you do?” His response was, “I am intensely interested in what I do!”

This was a man devoted to a lifestyle of continuous energy regarding the things of God.
As I continue on my journey to make spiritual progress in the area of creating and maintaining a lifestyle of continuous energy, I shared with you in the last article some of the principles the Lord has taught me over the years on how to personally stay intensely interested in what I do! I will briefly review and then give you the other principles the Lord shared with me.

First of all, live a life of praise and worship; secondly, pray in tongues continuously; third, practice His presence; fourth, give of your tithe, time and talent; fifth, maintain a servant’s heart and sixth, walk in love.

Let’s continue on. #7 – Control Your Environment - God has given us the ability, through the power of His Spirit, to live in an ungodly environment every day and not let that environment get into us! Colossians 3:2 tells us how to do that, “Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth.” The Taylor translations says, “…don’t spend your time worrying about things down here.” I really like that! There are many things that we cannot control, but the one thing we can control is our thought life which, in turn, controls our environment. We can’t always control the “outward” environment, but we can control our inward environment by controlling our thought life. When we control our thoughts, we control the direction our lives will go in.

As I said, there are many things we cannot control, but we can control the environment of our heart, mind and mouth!

8. Live on a Steady Diet of the Word of God – Galatians 6:8 - “The man who sows to his own flesh shall reap therefore a harvest doomed to perish; but he who sows for the Spirit shall from the Spirit reap the harvest of eternal life” (The Coneybeare Translation).

A steady diet of the Word of God, which sows to our spirit man, will reap a great spiritual harvest in our lives. We will experience the victory in our lives that Jesus died for.

Brother Norvel Hayes always said that we should “feed our faith and starve our doubts.” Just like we need air to breathe to stay alive, so our spirit man needs to feed on the Word of God to keep us alive, active and energized. Most of us make sure our bodies are fed on a regular basis, yet many go long periods of time without feeding their spirit man.
In order to live a life full of the zeal of God, our daily nourishment must come from our feeding on His precious Word. His Words are Spirit and they are life!

9. Watch Your Words – There is no doubt, throughout the Scriptures, that we shape our world by the words of our mouth. Proverbs 18:21 says, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue; and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof” (NKV). The Taylor translation says it this way, “Those who love to talk will suffer the consequences. Men have died for saying the wrong thing.”

Life and death are no light matter and to think we hold that power by the words that we speak! There are only two forces that can proceed out of our mouth—life or death, blessing or cursing. We must choose life by agreeing with what God has already declared to be true. If you don’t like where you are today, take inventory of what you have been letting come out of your mouth. When you change the words that you speak, the tide of your life will change.

10. Guard Your Heart - This is an area of our lives that we must protect at all cost. Proverbs 4: 20-23 tells us to “guard your heart for out of it flow the issues of life”(KJV). Think about that: life proceeds out of our hearts. If we really believed that, we would be much more careful of what we expose ourselves to, what we let in our hearts, and what we let come out of our hearts. We are told to guard our heart more than any other treasure. That means we are to protect our heart like it is the most valuable treasure that we have because it really is!

It is vital that we keep our hearts free from fear, worry, anxiety, jealousy, prejudice, unforgiveness and anything else that would overcrowd our hearts and weigh it down. When our hearts are heavy, our spiritual lives are affected and that affects us physically. We feel tired and sometimes even depressed. Nehemiah 8:10 says, “…be not grieved or depressed for the joy of the Lord is your strength” (Amp.).

Protect your heart from anything and everything that will try to deprive you of your spiritual strength, joy and zeal!

11. Stay Connected to the Corporate Anointing! - Everyone, yes, everyone needs to be connected to a local church. This is not man’s plan, this is God’s plan for our lives, for our growth and maturity in the things of God, for our health, joy, peace and prosperity and for His order to be established on the earth. The Church was not man’s idea, it was God’s idea. Don’t let anyone deceive you into thinking you don’t need to be a part of a local body. God didn’t intend for you to stay home and watch church on TV, listen to church on the radio or on the internet. His plan is for you to be vitally connected to a local body of believers where you can draw strength from the corporate anointing, a place for you to be equipped and trained and a place for you to give your supply of the spirit so others can benefit as well.

Hebrews 10:24, 25 says, “Let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to do good works: not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another; and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching” (KJV). The Amplified Translation says, “Not forsaking or neglecting to assemble together as believers, as is the habit of some people, but admonishing – warning, urging and encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day approaching.” These are very strong words here—admonish, warn, urge and encourage. This is what we should be doing with people who have made it a habit to miss church for no apparent reason. Once you get out of the habit of making it a priority to attend church, it becomes easier to miss church. First it is once a month, then twice and before you know it you come late, sit in the back, stop giving, start complaining and then you are gone! This is the plan of the enemy to get you disconnected from your life source. Remember, the local church is the hope of the world and you and I become the hope of the world when we stay linked up to God’s great plan for our lives.

These are some of the disciplines the Lord taught me to keep active in my life so that I can fulfill my purpose with the zeal of God. We cannot afford to let the devil smother our fire. Fan the flame today and stay red hot for Jesus! Stir it up! Rekindle the embers! Fan the Flame! Keep the fire burning! Turn up the Heat!