Become a Man of Low Resistance

I'm not very good at fixing electrical devices or circuits. For years if I needed to fix something wired into the house my first thought was to turn off the master breaker. I had to call one of my friends, a professional electrician, to come over and help me figure out how to set up two lights in our basement. (I had wired two shorts in the circuit, so kept blowing the breaker.)

Resistance is a molecular property of materials. If electrical current flows freely through a material (e.g., copper), it has low resistance and is a good conductor. If electrical current cannot flow (e.g., ceramics) the material is an insulator. We exploit the properties of some metals that conduct electricity poorly to make space heaters and toasters -- high resistance creates HEAT. (See this nice left-brain description of resistance.)

God has transformed us from insulators to conductors by giving us a heart of flesh and making us conductive (receptive) to His Spirit. But in our stubbornness we often resist the flow of the
Spirit and the work of God in our lives, and that creates needless HEAT. Not passion for the Lord, nor passion to see His kingdom grow, nor love for those who do not love you back, nor zeal of any value -- but strife and discourse, anger and resentment, bitterness and jealousy, pettiness and selfishness.

May the Lord help us become men of low resistance, and little heat.