1215) Several years ago, when I was living in North Carolina, my husband and I had just turned off the light at bedtime and as my head hit the pillow, I head a loud boom! Both of us sat up straight, unsure of what happened. I got up and looked out the window. I immediately saw across the field next to our house the source of the noise. There was a raging fire that I later discovered resulted from igniting a container of gasoline. Fortunately, the fire was extinguished quickly, but all I could think about was how many things at that house could have quickly feed the flames.

In consideration of feeding fires, Paul tells us to “put to death” things that are deadly, specifically, sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed. The term used as putting to death means to extinguish them, in a similar way to fighting a fire. This implies that we have a choice in this action. We choose to extinguish or put a lid on these flames in our lives.

Fires cause a lot of damage; let’s make sure we are not feeding them instead of extinguishing them. Colossians 3:5.