FIRE OF GOD

We love to hear stories of how God is a God of love, merciful, gracious, longsuffering and abounding in goodness and truth. While all of these are true, we must also realize that God is also described as a consuming fire (Hebrews 12:29).

There is an aspect of God’s nature that is strong and powerful as fire, putting holy fear in our hearts.

However, the fire of God may be one of the most misunderstood aspects of His nature. Man’s tendency is to stay away from fire as we think it will hurt us. But as we search the Scriptures about what the fire of God really is, we will come to understand that His fire is meant for perfecting us.

First, the fire of God’s jealousy.

“Take heed to yourselves, lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God which He made with you, and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of anything which the Lord your God has forbidden you. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.” (Deuteronomy 4:23-24)

Here, the Lord’s jealousy was compared to an intense fire. This speaks of God’s burning desire to see us committed to Him. He will not stand us having idols. But idols are not just false spiritual gods that people worship.

Idols can be our relationships, our careers, our possessions… basically, anything that we hold too dear to our hearts that leaves no more space for God.

The truth is, our hearts have only one throne. And this is why God is called a jealous God: because jealousy is a longing to be number one and to be the only one. Only God has the right to be jealous for the throne of our hearts because it rightly belongs to Him alone.

But God is not jealous out of a desire to make us slaves. Far from it. The fire of God’s jealousy is actually meant to protect us from idols that will lead us to the wrong path which ends in death.

It is God’s protective love towards us.

Second, the fire of God’s wrath.

“Now when the people complained, it displeased the Lord; for the Lord heard it, and His anger was aroused. So the fire of the Lord burned among them, and consumed some in the outskirts of the camp.” (Numbers 11:1)

This tells us that the Lord can be angered. Being a holy and pure God, He is angered by wickedness. However, we often think that God can only be angered by grave sins of murder or stealing or adultery…but it is very clear in Numbers 11 that God’s anger can be aroused even by our complaining.

In God’s mercy, He waits for us to turn from our sins. That’s why it’s said that God is slow to anger (Exodus 34:6). He gives us warnings and opportunities to realize and correct our mistakes.

But if we repeatedly reject all His warnings and continue wilfully sinning against Him, the time may come that the Lord will stop showing mercy and He will reveal Himself as the God of wrath.

Third, the fire of God’s presence.

“Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the back of the desert, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed. Then Moses said, “I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn.” So when the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” (Exodus 3:1-4)

This well-known story of the burning bush is essentially a story of an encounter with the Lord. The Lord appeared to Moses in an unlikely, dry, and barren place. This shows that the Lord is able to meet us in any way at anytime, anywhere. He can suddenly reveal Himself to us even when we are going through a season of drought in our spiritual walk when we don’t seem to feel God or hear from Him anymore.

However, an encounter with the Lord will also require a “turning aside,” just as Moses did. 

He had to turn aside from where he was going and look at the burning bush. But “turning aside” has become a challenge for us today more than ever. We are living in a generation that is overexposed to media and worldly pleasures. These distractions dull our spiritual ears, preventing us from hearing God when He calls.

God wants us to experience the fire of His presence. But we also have our part. We have to surrender the things that takes our attention from God. And at the same time, we need to learn to wait upon God and be always ready to turn aside to meet Him in a fresh way.

Fourth, the fire of God’s direction.

In Exodus 13:21-22, the Lord guided the Israelites to the promise land with the pillar of cloud by day and with the pillar of fire by night.

In the same way, God wants to direct our lives day by day. However, people often move without faith because there is no surrender. In order to allow the Lord to lead us step by step, we have to fully surrender our lives and desires to Him. The Israelites cannot go before the pillar of fire, and in the same manner, we cannot go ahead of God’s direction.

Fifth, the fire of God’s approval.

“When Solomon had finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices; and the glory of the Lord filled the temple.” (2 Chronicles 7:1)

This was the time when the Israelites finally finished the temple of God. And when Solomon prayed, the fire of God came. This symbolized God’s approval of the temple.

The fire of God’s approval is what we should be seeking for in our lives. There is no point in building our reputation and our careers or even doing good, charitable works if, in the end, it will not gain the stamp of God’s approval.

Let us pray to God to set our conducts aright and to purify the motives of our hearts that we may get His affirmation.

Sixth, the fire of God’s power.

In Acts 2:1-4, the Holy Spirit came as tongues of fire and filled the disciples which caused them to speak in different tongues and empowered them to become witnesses. This sparked the explosion of the early church. How we need this power of God today to see the revival that the church has been praying for.

The fire of God’s power can also transform lives. In 1 Kings 18:36-39, when Elijah prayed to God, the Lord sent fire which consumed the burnt sacrifice, the wood, the stones, the dust and licked up the water that was in the trench. When the people saw, they fell on their faces and said, “The Lord, He is God!”

Let us cry out for the fire of God’s power to transform the lives of people and make them see that the Lord, He is God!

Seventh, the fire of God’s refining.

“When the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and purged the blood of Jerusalem from her midst, by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning.” (Isaiah 4:4)

Gold has to be heated at 1,064 degrees Celsius in order to be refined. In the same manner, the Lord is our refiner, He will bring us to the right temperature to purify us. His refining fire removes our filth and purges us of our sins.

But His refining fire will only kill the wrong things in us – it will not wound our spirit. We can be joyful and thankful that God only subjects us to fires with just the right temperature to perfect us.

Eighth, the fire of God’s proving.

In First Corinthians 3:12-15, time will come when all our works will be tested. It is of utmost importance that all the works we do are built on strong foundations and will stand the fire in the end. We must desire enduring works which will prevail.

We will need the grace of God to bear the heat of fire. Let us pray that we will not shun away from the fire of God and will instead appreciate its beauty and divine work in our lives of perfecting us and refining us like gold.