DRIVING FORWARD in this world as a Christian with one set of wheels rolling in the automotive industry and the others moving forward in ministry… has given me a peculiar task. My job now is to express the faith put within me by the power of the Holy Spirit. But it’s a winding road! The scriptures however, in typical fashion… clearly show the way forward.

 You see, my Lord Jesus taught us how to speak as Christians. The writings in scripture that we know as “parables”, told us how God’s only Begotten Son used everyday objects to explain God’s eternal love. Using the common things of the earth, he pointed beyond human lives so that sinners could get a glimpse of the kingdom. So it is that I shall try to write theologically on what I know about engines.

 Powerful, clean and economical engines run in today’s vehicles to offer a closely-controlled threefold combination of fuel, fire, and force. However, if the proper proportions of the first two of these objects fall into error, the resulting force wanders from being acceptable. The vehicle’s efficiency falls off. This is a physical description of what can happen to any automobile’s engine… and this

Manifold Expectations

also relates directly to us as Christians. It describes what can happen in our Lord’s Church.

 As most of the motoring public knows, including we Christians… the most favorable component for powering cars comes in the form of liquid gasoline. Our fuel is made by refining crude oil. A bit dirty, like some human words that may sinfully come from our mouths, crude oil in raw form is heated gradually… and processed into usable, fractional parts. This is analogous to what happens when the Holy Spirit reveals God’s eternal Law to the Church. Dirt is uncovered. We are separated from our Creator because our sin is revealed to us.

 Chemically we know that using heat, we can separate crude oil by vaporous weights into natural gases, gasoline, diesel fuel, motor oil, grease, and other components. In like manner, scripture cooks our sinful hearts and boiling minds as guided by the Holy Spirit.