Tag Archives: fire

Glimpses Of The Great God: Day Two

Devotion, , , ,

DAY TWO

On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain,

and a very loud trumpet blast.

Everyone in the camp trembled.

Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain.

Mount Sinai was covered with smoke,

because the Lord descended on it in fire.

The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace,

the whole mountain trembled violently,

and the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder.

Then Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him.

Exodus 19:16-19

You have not come to a mountain that can be touched

and that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom and storm; …..but you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God.

Therefore since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably

with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.

Hebrews 12:18, 22a, 28, 29

As you read through these Scriptures aloud, remember that you have been made acceptable to God through the blood of Jesus.  We worship an awesome God, who is a consuming fire, but we worship the One who has made us holy through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus, and we no longer have to approach Him with terror and dread as the Israelites did.  We can worship Him with confidence because we are holy in His sight.

 

 

The Inside Story

Bible Study, , ,

THE INSIDE STORY

“The interest of the people by now was building. They were all beginning to wonder, ‘Could this John be the Messiah?’ But John intervened: ‘I’m baptising you here in the river. The main character in this drama, to whom I’m a mere stagehand, will ignite the kingdom life, a fire, the Holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out. He’s going to clean house — make a clean sweep of your lives. He’ll place everything true in its proper place before God, everything false He’ll put out with the trash to be burned.'” Luke 3:15-18 (The Message).

Just imagine! These were the people who stood on the threshold of a new era in Israel’s history. Messiah was about to be revealed! And they were in on it.

No wonder they ran after John, even putting up with his scathing accusations to hear what he had to say. There was something in the air and they did not want to miss it. But, just like Jesus’ disciples, they all suffered from selective hearing. They associated Messiah so closely with their hope of deliverance from Rome that they conveniently missed the crux of Messiah’s purpose for coming.

John could not have made it clearer: kingdom life; fire; Holy Spirit; changing you from the inside; clean sweep; true/false…all these things had to do with the heart, and attitude, and behaviour, and relationships, and people — the inner being — and nothing to do with politics and Roman occupation. But they just didn’t get it.

Funny how little has changed. Judging by much of what is propagated by so-called Christian television, the message still has to do with externals — blessing and prosperity and houses and cars and me, me, me; a free passport to heaven and everything I can get out of it now while I wait.

But that’s not what John told them. Messiah was about kingdom life and fire! If we read this like a Hebrew, fire was not about hell for those who don’t believe; fire was about purifying and burning off everything that contradicted the nature of God and His way of doing things. There is no place in His kingdom for anything false, like greed, selfishness, bitterness, anxiety, fear, unforgiveness, unbelief, jealousy, discontent and everything that makes our lives fall apart. It’s got to be burned off, burned up, if we are to have any place in God’s kingdom.

Unless a person is willing to let the fire burn, following Jesus becomes a very uncomfortable business. He’s not afraid to turn up the heat because He is passionate about presenting to His Father a family that resembles Him. If we are not prepared to let the fire burn off what does not resemble Jesus, the alternative is “torment”.

Torment is very much about “hell” now — the unquenchable fire of inner pain and turmoil. Have you ever been there? Jesus’ fire works quickly — it burns off the offending thoughts, attitudes and behaviour that contradict who He is, and peace is the blissful outcome, His peace that makes no sense but it’s real anyway. Hang on to your “stuff” and the fire burns slowly and never stops. It does not consume your issues but it does consume you.

When you think about it, God’s fire is pure mercy. Who, in his right mind, would want to hang onto the things that cause torment anyway? I recently read an article in a popular South African magazine about a woman who spends R3,500.00 a month (about $350.00) on tranquillisers because she was raped. I have a young woman in my study group who endured the same terrible experience but she’s free because she allowed Jesus to “burn off” her anger and bitterness, and the torment has gone.

What John was introducing was something far better than a “Romans-free” life. When you are free inside, the outside has no power to enslave, no matter how bad the circumstances are. With shredded backs and their feet in the stocks, Paul and Silas sang in the jail because they were free.

That’s what Messiah came to do!

A Marked Man

Christian Life, , , ,

A MARKED MAN

“Once everyone was accounted for and we realised that we all made it, we learned that we were on the island of Malta. The natives went out of their way to be friendly to us. The day was rainy and cold and we were already soaked to the bone, but they built a huge bonfire and gathered us around it.

“Paul pitched in and helped. He had gathered up a bundle of sticks, but when he put it on the fire, a venomous snake, roused from its torpor by the heat, struck his hand and held on. Seeing the snake hanging from Paul’s hand like that, the natives jumped to the conclusion that he was murderer getting his just deserts. Paul shook the snake off into the fire, none the worse for wear. They kept expecting him to drop dead, but when it was obvious he wasn’t going to, they jumped to the conclusion that he was a god!” Acts 28:1-6 (The Message).

Talk about drama! Never a dull moment with Paul around! It was obvious that Paul was a marked man. If it was not one thing, it was another. Since the storm had not taken him out at the end of a long line of assassination attempts, here’s another trick up Satan’s sleeve. A venomous snake was just the thing to finish him off and this time no one could help him.

But there was a word from God to cover even a situation like this one. “And these signs will accompany those who believe. In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands, and when they drink deadly poison it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people and they will get well.” Mark 16:17-18 (NIV).

Paul was not fazed by the sight of a deadly snake dangling from his hand. Why should he be? Was he not walking on the Word of God? He shook it off as though it were a bug and carried on feeding the fire. Unlike his hosts, he wasn’t expecting to drop dead because he was going to Rome!

The reaction of the islanders was typical of people who interpreted life from a superstitious world view. To them everything was a series of cause-and-effect events as a tit-for-tat response to their behaviour. When the snake struck, according to their understanding, Paul was being punished because he was an evil-doer but when nothing happened to him, they changed their tune. He must be a god!

There is a valuable spiritual lesson for us even in this bizarre happening. What was it that prevented the serpent’s venom from circulating through Paul’s body and doing its fatal damage? Was it not Paul’s attitude? Had fear taken hold of him, so would the snake poison have done. He was protected from death by his confidence in the words Jesus had spoken.

How many times we are “bitten” by the venomous words spoken to or about us! Words have the power to strike and latch on to our minds like a viper’s fangs. We have one of two options: receive them and allow the poison to seep into our minds and affect and infect our lives, or shake them off and remain immune to their deadly intention. “Words kill, words give life; they’re either poison or fruit — you choose.” Proverbs 18:21 (The Message).

How we deal with them depends largely upon what we think of ourselves. A few days ago we looked at the reason why Paul was so unaffected by his circumstances. He was already a dead man. He died on the day he met Jesus. Since you can’t kill a dead man, not even a poisonous snake could kill him. He was in the hands of God, not circumstances, so he could shake off the circumstances and stake his life on what God had spoken.

What a way to live! Carefree in the care of God! When you are walking on the Word, your feet are more securely planted than on solid earth!