Seventh-day Adventist® Church

"Are you a thermometer or a thermostat?"

The Olympic Torch arrived in Sheffield today. A city known for its industrial past, Sheffield steel is considered among the finest steel in the world. Steel production is still a major industry in Sheffield, and in one factory they are able to pour the largest ingot in Europe at 570 tonnes!

To make steel, you have to first make pig iron, which is basically steel with too much carbon. Further refinement takes place to make steel. To make pig iron, iron ore is heated at a very high temperature (1,375 °C / 2,507 °F). 

This is not as hot as ancient foundry workers managed. "The Haya people of East Africa invented a type of high-heat blast furnace which allowed them to forge carbon steel at 1,802 °C (3,276 °F) nearly 2,000 years ago." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel)

Clearly monitoring and regulating temperature is very important in the production of pig iron and steel. A thermometer tells you the temperature, a thermostat adjusts the temperature up or down.

So which are you? A thermometer or a thermostat?

Do you measure your relationship with God as to how "hot" you are? The thing is, a thermometer just reads the temperature. There is no adjustment. Just a reading. Fact. Acceptance.

A thermostat takes the reading and adjusts the heat to maintain it at the desired temperature. It is reactive and proactive. It adjusts. It optimises. In a foundry it changes matter from a solid to a liquid.

So which are you? A thermometer or a thermostat?

It is good to regularly measure the temperature of your relationship with God (thermometer), but even more important is to regulate (thermostat) your relationship with God in order to keep you at boiling point, thereby refining your relationship.

Does your relationship with God need some thermostatic adjustment? Is it time to turn up the heat? Spend some time in the presence of God to regulate your relationship with Him.

Ezekiel 24:11 (NIV)
Then set the empty pot on the coals
till it becomes hot and its copper glows,
so that its impurities may be melted
and its deposit burned away.

-Pr Nathan Stickland