Check Your Gauges!

Just as the gauges on the dashboard alert us to impending problems, God alerts us to areas in our spiritual lives
that need attention.

From a Sermon by Leroy Tonning


Many years ago, King David cried out to the Lord, “Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me” (Psalm 51:11). He was concerned. More than that, he was desperate. What was happening in his life was horrifying to him. He realized that something had gone wrong, and his spiritual life had fallen apart.

The good thing was that he acknowledged what had happened, and he wanted to do something about it.

It is a wonderful thing when we are willing to take action about a problem in our lives. Many people like to sweep their problems under the carpet and ignore them, but God wants them out in the open where they can be dealt with. That is a good basis for finding help if we are in trouble.

King David knew what a good spiritual life was. He had experienced precious fellowship with God. He had sat out on the hills of Bethlehem, perhaps playing his harp, and had communion with God. In Psalm 23 he wrote so beautifully about how he could lie in green pastures, and have the Lord lead him to still waters, restore his soul, and renew him. He felt that his cup was filled to overflowing. His fellowship with God was so beautiful that he could not contain it.

Unfortunately, that was not the case when he wrote Psalm 51. He should have known better. He had seen how the life of King Saul, his predecessor, had deteriorated. He knew that King Saul had experienced a time during his early days when God blessed his life, and he was mighty in the sight of man. Then something happened. King Saul became disobedient. He exalted himself and did something that was not according to the will of God, and that was the beginning of his downhill slide. David had seen how the king's life degenerated to the point that he was in terrible distress, his mind became dark and became filled with jealousy and murder. He knew how it had all ended.

David should have known better, but he was not careful enough. He did not see the warning signs that he should have noticed. It is important to pay attention when things start to go the wrong way. There are signs that tell us in many ways.

Our bodies are wonderfully made. We can feel when something is wrong. If we are a little cold, we feel it, and we put on a jacket. If we get too warm, we know that too, and we take the jacket off again. If we are really warm, we observe that we have a fever and we go to bed and stay there until we are well again. That is a good thing! We should listen to the signals of our bodies.

Sometimes people don't do that. Perhaps they are out hiking or skiing, and the weather gets bad, and they can't find their way home. They keep going until they are completely exhausted. Then they sit down and the body temperature sinks, and they feel pretty good. They shouldn't, but they do. They say, “I think I will take a little rest,” and they fall asleep never to wake up again. They did not know enough to recognize what was happening, and that meant death. That can also happen to people spiritually. They get cold in their spirit and they do not recognize it. They sit down to rest and they fall asleep, perhaps never to wake up again. What a terrible thought! We should guard against that. We should watch carefully what is happening in our spiritual lives, and find out what is wrong when there is a problem.

When we get into our cars and start to drive, there are things on the dashboard that are meant to warn us about what is going on. Our modern cars have so many blinking lights and beeping sounds that you would almost think that you were riding a merry-go-round! Those signals are there for a purpose. We can look at the different gauges and find out if there is gas enough, if the oil pressure is sufficient, if the water temperature is right. All these things are important. If we don't look at the gauges, something could go wrong and we would not know.

Recently, I drove through the Seattle, Washington, area and the traffic was really heavy. We were traveling on a freeway that was five lanes wide. There were cars everywhere, and I was in the middle of it. Then the thought came to me, What if I run out of gas here in the middle of all this? In Norway, if we run out of gas, we just pull over and get out of the car and wait for the next car. It might come pretty soon. You don't do that in Seattle! So I thought, What happens if our car stops in the middle of all this traffic? It would be very humiliating, even dangerous. Anyway, I looked at the gauge and fortunately there was a lot of gas, and that was reassuring. I drove a little while, and then I started thinking again, What if I run out of gas? I looked at the gauge again and it was still half full, and I felt a lot better.

How good it would be if we would regularly “check our gauges” in the spiritual sense to make sure that we have enough of God's Spirit to keep us going. We read in the Bible that when we get saved, the Spirit of God witnesses to our spirit that we are a child of God. Yes, that may be just a measure of His Spirit, but it is enough to help us understand that we belong to God. Then, as we begin to grow in faith, we get more and more of the Spirit of God upon our lives.

When we are sanctified, we understand more of it, and we feel we are getting ready to receive the fullness of His Spirit. That is a wonderful situation to be in. As we are baptized with the Holy Ghost, we can say with David, “My cup runneth over.” We are filled and we feel so good about it. But the question is, are we still filled today or does our spiritual fuel gauge show that we have just half a tank? Or, even more serious, are we getting really low? That happens! People let the Spirit of God leak out of their lives, and before they know it, they have run out of fuel. We all know that no matter how powerful an engine is, it has to have fuel to keep it running.

It is a wonderful thing to have the Spirit of God upon our lives because the fruit of the Spirit is love. The love of God is something that will keep us going for sure. We read in the Bible about the importance of having love. It says in the English Bible that “. . . the love of Christ constraineth us” (2 Corinthians 5:14). In the Norwegian Bible, that passage has a slightly different wording. It is written as if the love of God is a power to propel us, to drive us on, or to keep us going. What a wonderful thought—that if our lives are filled with the love of God, then we keep going.

Another gauge on our car is the oil gauge. Oil is an important thing to keep the motor running smoothly. The oil that God gives us keeps us running smoothly spiritually. I looked under the hood of a Jaguar recently. A huge motor makes that car go pretty fast, but I know that motor will not go very far if the oil is not there.

I had a colleague who didn't really pay too much attention to how his car worked. He just drove it. Even after the red oil light on the dashboard went on, he didn't bother to think about what it might mean; he just kept on driving. Soon the car stopped and it never went again.

That happens in peoples' lives also. The supply of spiritual oil is gone, but they keep on going. They will stop and will not go again unless they get more of the oil of God. Thank God for the oil that He pours out!

Sometimes we might feel that we are a little bit low on that spiritual oil. How wonderful it is that we can come to God in prayer and ask Him to fill us up. God can fill us again and again and keep us running smoothly. The important thing is to watch the gauges, to observe how things are going, to look for warning signals that indicate we might be running low.

What is your spiritual condition today? Maybe your life is not exactly what it once was. Perhaps you are in the same situation as David—you know that once you had a good relationship with God, but it isn't exactly the same today. God can change all of that. He did for David. David prayed a simple prayer and acknowledged his wrongdoings, and the Lord restored him.

Take a close look at the gauges on your spiritual dashboard today. God will help you understand if something is not quite right. If you are honest, you will know what is happening, because He will speak to your heart. If you will listen, He will help you.

Leroy Tonning is District Superintendent for the Apostolic Faith work in Scandinavia, and pastor of the church in Stavanger, Norway.