What Fuels You?

By Matt Watson

To produce energy, you need fuel. But not every fuel is suitable for the job. Wood will not fuel an electric stove. You don't put diesel in a truck that takes regular gas. Sure, you might get combustion, but you’ll also get destruction.

In Judges 8, Gideon is battle-weary, hungry, and frustrated. He went from being a passive dude to being a military commander in a very short amount of time. He has had a lot of success, but not a lot of maturing. He was insecure and felt like he had to prove himself. And he just killed a whole bunch of people, and any infantry grunt will tell you that does something to your head.

So when the men of Succoth balk at providing bread to his 300 men, Gideon implodes and shoots his mouth off: "Well then, when the Lord has given Zebah and Zalmunna into my hand, I will flail your flesh with the thorns of the wilderness and with briers" (Jdg 8:7). 

A normal man might realize he may have escalated a little quickly, and that he needed a Snickers bar and a nap. A normal man would back off. But not Gideon. Probably in fear of losing face before his warriors and the armies of Israel, he takes a warlord mentality and carries through with his threat.

Rage and bitterness are potent fuels, and they burn hot. You can get a lot done with them, but they don’t burn clean, and they will ultimately destroy that which they fuel. “Fueled by coffee and hate” makes for a great t-shirt, but for a lousy person to be around. 

What Fuels You?

Let's look at what happens when we use dirty fuel. These are purely "hypothetical" examples and any resemblance to you, the reader, is purely coincidental. 

Are you fueled by resentment and bitterness? You were lied to all your life, told you weren’t worth anything, couldn’t do anything right, and wouldn’t amount to anything. By God, you proved them wrong, didn’t you? You worked harder than everyone else to earn your way. You have the house, the truck, and the backyard with the swimming pool to prove it. Except you’re constantly living to prove them wrong and in so doing, you’ve permitted them to still lie to you, ruining any joy or satisfaction you could have.

Are you fueled by pride and ambition? You're strong and independent. No one can tell you what to do or how to do it. You’ll do it yourself, sacrificing whatever and whomever you need to get what you deserve. If you're a woman, then you don’t need a man to take care of you, and if you’re a man, then women are (mostly) meaningless to you. You’re self-made, and each of your kids has a job title that you can brag about. Except you’re constantly pushing others away, wondering why your relationships are always full of conflict. You feel empty. 

Are you fueled by hate and anger? You tell yourself it's for the sake of justice that you prosecute those around you, correcting them, telling them exactly what you think of them and how they are wrong. Maybe you even think you’ve harnessed it, using it as fuel in the gym to sculpt the person you want to be. You’re a dry prairie waiting for a spark to become an inferno. 

Seneca, a Greek stoic philosopher who once advised Nero, says,

Insanity and destruction is the fruit of using the flesh's dirty fuel. But when we use fuel from the Holy Spirit, we produce something much sweeter.

The opposite of the fruits of the flesh are the fruits of the spirit. Instead of unbridled intense expressions of anger, thumos, or the unbridled sexual passion of orgies and sexual immorality, the Spirit produces self-control, love, and patience. Instead of enmity, strife, and jealousy, the Spirit produces kindness, joy, and goodness. 

How To Choose the Right Fuel

Set your mind on the things of the Spirit

The word for anger in Gal 5:20 is "thumos." Thumos means intense expressions of self, particularly intense anger, wrath, rage, etc. From a Greek perspective, thumos can be used for good. It’s the “fire in the belly” that spawns a man to fight, to be courageous and stand firm, or to execute the mission. Bits and bridles are used to control a horse and make it move in a certain direction. You’re thumos needs a strong bridle to keep it under control. The stoics believed reason was what controlled our actions. They are only part right.

You're ability to reason through something, is just as corrupted by sin as the rest of you. If you're not renewing your mind by having it set on the Lord, then you're liable to be a fool. For example, Romans 1:21-23 tells us that those who have exchanged the truth of God for a lie are futile in their thinking (they're stupid).

So, yes, we need to rule our emotions with our reason, but we can't do that apart from the illuminating work of our helper the Holy Spirit. David Saxton in his book God’s Battle Plan for the Mind: The Puritan Practice of Biblical Mediation, says that “when he mediates [on Scripture], the believer fills his mind with truth so that his life becomes governed by the attitude of the Savior.”

Set your heart on God’s love for you through the Spirit

Your affections must be ruled by truth, not emotion. so set your heart on true things. The way to deal with conflict, the way to "rejoice in our sufferings" as Romans 5:3 says, is to hope in the Lord, whose "love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit." 

Do you think about the love of the Lord? Do you delight in his Word, will, and ways? None of us do all the time, but the more we do, the more we get good, clean, fuel to ignite our hearts with truth. We will then be able to withstand the attacks of the enemy better, deal with being slighted at work, face doctor bills, and otherwise deal with the things we cannot control.

Set your hands against the deeds of the flesh by the Spirit

You can’t kill your sin on your own, because you can’t obey the law on your own. Only the Spirit can do it. How do you put to death the deeds of the flesh by the Spirit? The Spiritual Disciplines, especially Scripture reading, Scripture meditation, and prayer.

John Owen's Mortification of Sin, and Brian Hedges' License to Kill, say that meditation and prayer help us kill sin because those disciplines help us in self-examination, exposing the sin in our hearts, deepening our disgust for that sin, and strengthening our faith in the victory of the cross.

Conclusion

We all have a choice: we can fuel ourselves with the corrupting flames of the flesh - resentment, pride, anger, and the like - or we can allow the Holy Spirit to produce in us the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The former might seem appealing, giving us a burst of energy and a sense of power, but it ultimately leads to destruction, leaving us empty and alienated from God and others. The latter, on the other hand, is the path to true life and peace.

It's not an easy path, to be sure. Putting to death the deeds of the flesh is a daily battle, one that requires us to continually set our minds on the things of the Spirit, to meditate on God's love for us, and to rely on the power of the Spirit to transform us from the inside out. But it's a battle worth fighting, for it leads us to the very heart of God, where we find our true identity and purpose.

So choose wisely. Let us reject the false and fleeting power of the flesh, and instead embrace the true and eternal power of the Spirit. For it is only then that we will find the fuel that truly satisfies, the fuel that burns not only hot but pure and everlasting.

Further Reading

Hedges, Brian. License to Kill: A Field Manual for Mortifying Sin. Minneapolis: Cruciform Press, 2011.

Owen, John. The Mortification of Sin. Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 2004.

Saxton, David W. God’s Battle Plan for the Mind: The Puritan Practice of Biblical Meditation. Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2015.

Seneca, How To Keep Your Cool: An Ancient Guide to Anger Management. Translated by James Romm. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019.

This article was originally published by Matthew Watson with Awake! Put on strength!, and is used under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license.