I’ve often heard the analogy of filling a gas tank to reading our Bibles (maybe even taught it in passing to make a quick point). But I’ve been thinking about this and have concluded that reading the Bible isn’t like filling a gas tank in a car, at least not exactly.
While at first glance, such an analogy may make sense in a variety of energy consumption scenarios (oil burners, kerosene lamps, etc.), we might wrongly rationalize the spiritual life this way. You might be asking, “What is this guy getting at?” I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t want to dishonor God’s basic desire for us to read our Bibles daily by supposing that we can “fill up our fuel tanks” and be on our way for a week or so, depending on supposed “driving conditions” or “time on the road,” so to speak.
Though it’s true, we must take the time to fill our tanks (“receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls.” - James 1:21), beyond this is where the two analogs differ significantly. With a vehicle, you could technically go a very long period of time on a single tank of gas - it all depends on mileage driven. For example, I have a motorcycle that sits in my garage all winter with a single tank of gas that I start up in the spring and drive around as if I had just filled the tank the day before. However, in the spiritual life, if we attempt to go long stretches of time without a “refill”, we are certainly going to suffer the consequences.
There’s another critical difference between these two analogs. In a car, you might drive all day, consuming a full tank of gas. If you don’t have the money to pump more into the tank, you’re stuck. Consuming petroleum fuel isn’t a supernatural phenomenon, but ingesting the bread of life for our spiritual sustenance is. “Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst’” (John 6:35). This means that you could “drive” an unlimited number of miles in a day on a single “tank of gas”. In other words, you are not constrained by finite formulas of consumption like combustion engine automobiles are. You drive the bumpy roads of life all day, every day, supernaturally energized.
Part of realizing these supernatural phenomena is doing as this blog is suggesting, “refilling” daily. For example, how energizing is the following perspective?
Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?…But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.
— Romans 8:35, 37
The Greek word translated “we overwhelmingly conquer” is hupernikao, where nikao means overcomer and huper is where we get the prefix “hyper-” in the English language, which means “over, beyond, above, or super”. In other words, our “conquering” is a supernatural feat. We are able to “drive all day” without a “refill” because the Word of God and the Spirit of God are supernatural enablers. This is impossible in an ordinary car. To know such things in and of themselves, is tremendously energizing. But again, the way we remain encouraged by such things is to have them implanted into our souls daily.
So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.
—Romans 10:17
We may drive well over “a thousand miles” in a single day on “one tank of gas” in the spiritual life. However, we may “run out of gas” the very next day, even if we’ve only “driven twenty miles after a refill”. The fact is that each day presents its own issues, its own challenges. Jesus described this as, “Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matthew 6:34). As such, the Word encourages us to “refill” our spiritual tanks as often as possible, regardless of how “filled up” we think we are at the end of the day before. While God promises to sustain us, we aren’t fully blessed with the fruit of His Spirit (ala Galatians 5:22-23) unless we abide in His commandment to “refill daily”.
Happy driving!
Love in Christ,
Ed Collins
