Lessons from Satellite Radio

Here are a few spiritual truths my satellite radio has taught me. Actually, the Holy Spirit taught me these using my radio, but you know what I mean …

1—Several car brands give you 30-90 days of satellite radio for free. After that, if you don’t pay up, it’s gone. Silence.

For me, I’m not in my car enough during 30-90 days for the access to this radio system to become a habit. But my current car manufacturer gave it to me for a full year. Guess what? In a year, I will miss it when it’s not there, thereby creating a greater desire to subscribe.

Here’s the point: How long does it take you to form a habit? Good or bad? How long are you exposed to something until you miss it, feel you can’t live without it, and want to make it a part of your life? What makes you decide to pay up—for good or bad? We all have our number and we all have our “needs.” The trick is to constantly kill our subscriptions to the enemy’s signal and sign up for God’s. The interesting thing is Satan’s is never paid up, while Christ’s is always paid in full.

2—When I drive into a garage to park or protect my car, I lose the signal. When I’m out in the open, the signal is clear.

When we park our faith or hide to “protect” it, we lose the signal to the Holy Spirit. He doesn’t go anywhere; we do. We choose to park or hide. We get back out in the open and the signal is restored. We place ourselves back in the position to hear.

3—When we tune into local radio and drive past a certain radius, we lose the signal. We have to stay in a certain range for the local to work. When we tune into satellite radio, we can drive all over the country and listen to the same station, endlessly.

Faith is in danger when it becomes locational and situational, as in only being expressed in our church, with our people, in our denomination, in our comfortable setting, when we decide Jesus is just local.

But, in reality, His is an endless signal that can broadcast strong anywhere, anytime, in any setting. He’s global and we never have to be out of range. And His subscription is paid for—forever.

Now, dear brothers and sisters, regarding your question about the special abilities the Spirit gives us. I don’t want you to misunderstand this. You know that when you were still pagans, you were led astray and swept along in worshiping speechless idols. So I want you to know that no one speaking by the Spirit of God will curse Jesus, and no one can say Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit. There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit is the source of them all. There are different kinds of service, but we serve the same Lord. God works in different ways, but it is the same God who does the work in all of us. —1 Corinthians 12:1-6 NLT