This weekend me and my youth group went to Teen Mania's Acquire the Fire. I've gone since I was in 6th grade so this was my 7th and last time going as a student. It's kinda funny. I remember the first years I went to ATF it seemed so out of this world. So amazing. So life changing. Every time I went, I seemed to learn something so new that I hadn't heard before.
The past 3 years haven't felt that way.
Now don't get me wrong. Every time I go, I have a blast, the worship is great, and I always feel very refreshed. But something I've noticed is it hasn't felt the same the past 3 or so years. Why is that? Well for one, I've learned and matured a LOT. That and over the past 3 years, I've done something different than I did the first years. I've started applying the fire.
This is so crucial. In fact, it's SO crucial, that without it, ATF is meaningless. Why? Well those Teen Mania teams don't go out every weekend and shed their blood, sweat, and tears so that you can have a good time for weekend. No, they invest massive amounts of time and money into these events to really CHANGE your life.
There's two types of change. Change that occurs because of certain event that happened that can't be taken back. For example, the loss of a family member, moving to a different state, losing an arm or leg. Then there's change that happens because of a choice you make. There may be something that leads you to choose change, but, you can ALWAYS stop choosing this kind of change.
Being a Christian almost always consists of the second kind of change. That's why they put on ATF: to compel us to choose to change our way of living every day, not just for that weekend. If we aren't doing that, if we're only acquiring fire once every year, then it's meaningless. Fire dies down if you don't continue to fuel it. In my opinion, ATF is more about applying the fire than acquiring it. Because Christianity is about DOING something. Not just hearing it. And that goes down to every single choice we make. Whether we get mad or cool down; get offended or give it to God; whether we give in or fight back.
Every single day we NEED to apply what we learn at events like ATF. More importantly we need to apply what we learn every day in His word. Things like ATF are meaningless without that truth. Without that EIPC truth.
