ARE YOU HYDRATED?

ARE YOU HYDRATED?

I can remember countless times when I was playing football where I felt as if I were literally going to die of dehydration. I would day dream of swimming in a pool of Gatorade. I remember one time in Mississippi when I lost eleven pounds at practice and could not get enough fluid in my body (and by the way the delta of Mississippi was not an ideal place for me to die). I remember becoming so weak that I just felt like lying down on the field and taking a nap. Not only that, while playing at West Georgia, we had a number of players catch full body cramps and have to go the hospital to get IV’s. It’s a miserable feeling and it is impossible to be effective on the field and be suffering from dehydration at the same time. The problem is that most of the time you only get water when the coaches wanted to allow you to get water.  When this happens it is pretty obvious what is going on, you don’t need a doctor to tell you that you are dehydrated. However, many times as Christians we become severely dehydrated and don’t even know it.  1 Thessalonians 5:19 says “do not quench the Spirit “; Webster defines the word quench like this; to put out, or extinguish. So we know that when we become physically dehydrated it’s because we have not taken in enough fluids. Well, how do we become spiritually dehydrated how do we extinguish or put out the spirit? That’s real easy to define but we sometimes seem to complicate it, SIN quenches the Spirit. When we have unresolved sin in our life it begins to stifle the spirit’s work. Verse 22 in this same chapter says “to abstain from even the appearance of evil”.  The spirit and sin are like oil and water no matter how hard we try to mix them they just want go together. We can do our best to justify ourselves and even go so far as twisting the word of God in order for it to fit our way of living, which is a very dangerous thing to do. The problem with being spiritually dehydrated is that we have and adversary that is whispering lies, telling us that we are okay and encouraging us to continue down the path that we are on. 1 Peter 5:8 describes him like this “8 be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour”. The devil is a lot smarter than we give him credit for. Not only that, he comes as an angel of light, meaning there is no way to recognize him without you relinquishing complete control to the spirit. However, if you have quenched the spirit, you are in a good spot to get the brakes beat off of you by the devil. So how do you overcome that? How do you keep from becoming dehydrated in the first place? First, you have to be thirsty; if you’re not thirsty you don’t realize your need for something to drink “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled”. In Acts 3 Peter told a crowd of people to repent and turn to God, so they may be cleansed and then wonderful times of refreshment would come from the presence of the Lord. You see the great thing about God is we don’t need permission to drink from his fountain. When we place our faith in him we can enter into his presence with confidence because the blood of Christ has covered us. We can drink from his unlimited fountain of refreshment and know “that the fullness of joy comes from the presence of the Lord” Psalm 16:11. So ask yourself today are you thirsty? Have you been walking around dehydrated for too long? Identify your enemy today and return to you first love and he will restore you. God bless and have a great day

Mitchell Dean

---