Remember when Cars were easy to work on?

When I was a young teen, cars were so much easier to work on. I had a friend who had an older (1966, I think) Ford F-150 pickup. It had a "Straight 6" cylinder engine. It had a carburetor, remember those? A carb? (No not carbohydrates, a carburetor.) They also had a thing called a distributor, which had a top on it called a distributor cap. If you remember working on cars and actually knowing what these things were, you and I are old>

A car engine (Internal Combustion engine) needs three things to work, 1) Gas 2) Spark ( or fire, as we called it) and 3) Air. The fire came from the generator which turned along with the engine and generated current, the current was sent to the distributor which distributed it among the spark plugs at just the right time to cause a spark to ignite the gas that the carburetor had mixed with air and pumped into the cylinders. Then there was an explosion inside the cylinder and the piston was pushed down, the piston was attached to the crank shaft which turned this motion into a circular motion, and "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" you had the wheels turning. There you go, Internal Combustion Engine 101.

Our worship leader, during Praise and Worship time yesterday morning, used the term: "Lord, continue to distribute your power onto each and everyone of us". The word Distribute, got my mind going, and you know what that means if you have read much of my "stuff" I continued thinking about the process of the older engines. I remember having a 1972 Chevy Pick up that you could actually stand up inside the engine compartment, if needed to get to things. There was that much room between the sides of the engine and the sides of the engine compartment.

OK, now for the point: What three things do we need to make an internal combustion engine work? Gasoline, Spark (fire) and Air. What three things do we, as Christians, need as we live in this sinful world? Fuel (God's Word), Spark (Fire) power from the Holy Spirit and Air (The breath of God) Without all three of these a car will not go, and a Christian will not run to our full potential. When a neighbor of mine was working on his car in the parking lot the other day, I had just pulled up and walked over and found him trying and trying to start the engine without success. Three questions I asked: "Is it getting fuel?" "Yes", I answered myself, you could smell gasoline, "How about Fire?" I asked. "Yes," he answered," I found that out the hard way". He had touched a screw driver tip to one of the spark plugs while his son turned the engine over, and YES, it had fire. It was an older car, so I asked about the carburetor . "Getting air?" I asked. "Seems to be", he answered. All three of us, and several more interested parties looked at the engine trying to figure out what was causing the car not to start. After a few minutes, I said: "Just because we can smell gas, doesn't mean it is getting gas to the carburetor , where is the fuel filter on this thing?" Sure enough that was the problem, the fuel filter was clogged. We cleaned it out best as we could, and he went to a parts house and got a new one. He later offered to take me to lunch. Made me feel pretty good, as I really don't know that much about cars. I do know however, that those three things are needed for a engine to run.

Those three things are needed for a christian to "run" also. Let me explain my thought process: We are the engine, but we are just pushing ourselves along, can't get the thing going. God supplies the Air, from Himself, (The Breath of God) This air is sucked into the carburetor, and mixed with the fuel (The Word of God, (The Bible) It has Power, it can never come back void, The president cannot "Veto" it, NO ONE can deny it, they can make fun of it, ignore it, pretend it is not there, but cannot in all truth, deny it!) then this explosive mixture is given a spark (The generator supplies this spark (The Holy Spirit supplies this Fire), through the distributor (Jesus)) who times just when the spark is applied to the spark plugs. When all this happens at just the right time, BOOM, there is a explosion in the cylinder and we move forward. As this process continues to happen we move faster and faster. But here is the drawback, if Just one of these things is removed from the engine, we stop our progress. We must keep the tank full, the generator working, and the carburetor in good shape. If we are not IN TUNE with all three of the God Head (you know One God, in three parts) in our lives, then our engine will not work very well, if at all.

I don't know if you got anything from this or not, but I do know I did. I find it amazing how my thought process works sometimes. While we were praising and worshiping God during this time yesterday morning, I was not solely concentrating on these thoughts. I was praising God, that there are so many things in this world that He created, that show us Him.

Acts 2:3
"Then, what looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each of them"--The Holy Spirit came with power, and "Fire".

Judges 14:6
"At that moment the Spirit of the LORD came powerfully upon him, and he ripped the lion’s jaws apart with his bare hands. He did it as easily as if it were a young goat. But he didn’t tell his father or mother about it."--God supplies all the power we could ever need, just at the time we need it.

Job 33:4

" For the Spirit of God has made me,
and the breath of the Almighty gives me life. "--He, the Lord, breathes into us life, by just His breath.

I find it fascinating that someone came up with the "Internal Combustin Engine" years and years ago. It is really a marvel. But what I find AMAZING is that God is all we need. He created the minds that made this engine, just like He created the minds that made everything we have today. God is ALL powerful, All Loving, All Knowing, All Anything and everything we need Him to be and more. Get your lives "IN TUNE" with Him, you'll run like a top from here on out. But don't forget to "Fill UP" often, with His fuel, the best there is.