We’ve recently been in Northern Ireland, and brought back not just good memories but also some wonderful bread that is only made over there.
Yesterday we ended up having an impromptu toast party, where we ate more of the bread than we initially thought we would, and so we put our faithful toaster through it’s paces!
The end result was satisfied taste buds and tummies, along with a kitchen full of smoke! It turned out that some crumbs became caught in the bottom of the toaster and had set on fire.
They were good embers – but no one wants embers like these in their toaster. They make a smell, kick up smoke and generally cause a nuisance.
Then what is the best place for embers? Your life and mine, and everywhere we go. God’s Church in the UK needs people like you and me who want to burn brightly with God’s love in a world that can be very dark. People who have tasted something of God and long for more of him; people who perhaps were ‘on fire’ for him at one stage but realise that fire has dimmed. People who see potential in their relationship with God, with a conviction that he has more for them. If each of us takes our relationship with God seriously and lives that out alongside others, each one of us can be an ember in our local churches. When this happens God will renews them, and us too. The end result will be felt in our neighbourhoods, towns and cities.
So, be encouraged to ‘be an ember’ where you are – yes in your local church, but everywhere else you and God go throughout the week. And then, don’t forget to tell people what he is doing! It will build and strengthen faith in existing believers and will help it to spring up in those who don’t yet believe. Just remember the embers should be burning in your life, and not in your toaster!