God’s Fire

How can God be both loving and kind yet hate and judge sin? Since the Bible uses fire to symbolize God, it helps me to compare Him to fire. It burns to both purify and to destroy. It creates warmth yet also reduces to ashes. Fire cooks food yet can burn it to nothing. Fire gives light that signifies glory and can guide our way, but it can also blind eyes. Fire is both friend and foe, helpful to forge weapons, but also a force that consumes sacrifices or ruins cities, idols, or anything that will burn.

The Old Testament speaks of God being like fire that protects and purifies:

“But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap.” (Malachi 3:2)

Jesus also spoke of the Holy Spirit as fire who would burn up all that does not glorify God by bearing fruit that shows His power:

But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” (Matthew 3:7–12)

Then, after Jesus ascended to heaven the Holy Spirit came — as fire:

“When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.” (Acts 2:1–4)

As Tozer writes, “The God who had appeared TO them as fire throughout all their long history was now dwelling IN them as fire.” He revealed Himself in what is called the Shekinah glory and then came to live in the hearts of all who believe. This is Deity giving Himself to His ransomed people, sealing them as His own and “making them men and women of the Fire.”

These are lofty thoughts, but also practical. Everything fire symbolizes about the power of God is now part of my life. Because of the Holy Spirit, I can be loving and kind yet also hate sin (especially my own). I can have a purifying effect, creating warmth and being a light in this world, but in my flesh can ruin things. In the power of the Holy Spirit, I can bring light to darkness but must remember that without Him, this fire can be negative and destructive. It must be handled with care.

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Lord Jesus. You say to me:

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:14–16)

The bottom line is that the light and the fire that You put in my heart is there to bless others for Your glory. May I always be mindful that I’m not here to destroy but to illuminate Your goodness.

Gawking at accidents?

Today’s devotional presents a view of Christians that is startling. Tozer writes, “Through the leading and the power of the Holy Spirit, the Christian is involved in a daily life and habit that cannot be explained. A Christian should have upon him an element that is beyond psychology—beyond all natural laws and into spiritual laws. He points to the following passage:

“Hear, you who are far off, what I have done; and you who are near, acknowledge my might. The sinners in Zion are afraid; trembling has seized the godless: ‘Who among us can dwell with the consuming fire? Who among us can dwell with everlasting burnings?’ He who walks righteously and speaks uprightly, who despises the gain of oppressions, who shakes his hands, lest they hold a bribe, who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed and shuts his eyes from looking on evil, he will dwell on the heights; his place of defense will be the fortresses of rocks; his bread will be given him; his water will be sure.” (Isaiah 33:13–16)

Tozer says, “A genuine Christian should be a walking mystery because he surely is a walking miracle . . . we Christians should be men and women out of the fire.”

The Bible calls God a “consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:29) because He is holy, hostile to sin, and can only burn on and on against sin forever. Who can stand against that fire? Only those who have been made righteous. Who are those made righteous? Those who believe in Jesus Christ and whose lives demonstrate that righteousness as described by Isaiah: walking righteously, speaking uprightly, despising any gain from oppressing others, shakes his hands refusing bribes, stops his ears from hearing bloodshed and shuts his eyes from looking on evil.

In a practical sense, the last two are gray zones. It seems to me this isn’t about being blind to what is going on in this world, refusing to read the newspaper or watch the evening news. It is more about that attitude that causes people to slow down and gawk when passing a highway accident. A reporter once told me that this is what sells — that inner desire to see blood and bad stuff. Without it, newspapers would not sell and he would not have a job.

This is poking at me. I click on my news app so I know how many people were killed in the latest weather disaster. Sometimes I’m looking for ‘good’ news, but good news is rare so I become curious about the bad stuff, the reports of increasing evil. There is something in me that tends to gawk. That something is sinful and not the attitude that passes the test of fire. God is telling me to deal with this, however slight it might be.

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For your name’s sake, O Lord, pardon my guilt, for it is great. (Psalm 25:11) It hasn’t felt like a big deal but Your Word speaks of this ‘hearing of bloodshed and looking on evil’ as something God’s righteous people do not do. I admit the desire to gawk. I also admit ignoring any conviction that I might have felt about it to the point that it didn’t seem important. Instead of stopping to look, I must imagine You holding my hand and giving me a totally different attitude toward the bloodshed and evil around me. I agree that such interest is ungodly and realize that You have a far different attitude toward looking at evil than I do. Change my heart.

By water and by fire . . .

Baptism, according to most Protestant creeds, is a declaration to the world that I have decided to follow Jesus. This is water baptism. Since the Greek word means ‘to immerse or plunge into’ and the biblical narratives describe it that way, many are convinced that water baptism is in a tank or a river, not by sprinkling.

Whatever a person believes about how a person should be baptized, there is another baptism that Christians cannot do. It is the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Since the word used for this baptism is the same word used for what we are supposed to do, the baptism of the Spirit is about being ‘immersed or plunged’ into Him. This illustrates a life that is completely engulfed in the person and power of God’s Spirit, a radical and wonderful experience.

“I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” (Matthew 3:11)

The speaker is John and he is talking about Jesus. John is also living that humble attitude that true repentance brings — and the attitude that happens when spiritual baptism takes place.

Some associate the baptism of the Holy Spirit with a lot of noise and rejoicing, with actions like falling down or speaking unknown languages. Here, John’s words associate it with a sense of being unworthy, a humility that does not draw attention to self. This is a humility that realizes that I have no worth in myself; only because of Jesus can I stand before God, a forgiven sinner.

Yes, John could baptize repentant sinners with water. Yes, I can obey God with certain actions — but only the Lord Jesus Christ can fill a person with the Spirit of God and with fire.

In the Bible, fire is a judgment metaphor that points to the destruction of all that is unclean. Fire speaks about purity and refinement. Because the Holy Spirit baptizes with fire, no one can claim to be filled with the Spirit of God and have blatant unconfessed sin in their life. The fire of God cannot be there without blasting through the human heart and exhuming all that is defiling it.

Chambers uses words like, “When He comes am I prepared for Him to drag into the light every wrong thing I have done? It is just there that He comes. Wherever I know I am unclean, He will put His feet; wherever I think I am clean, He will withdraw them.”

Jesus is not interested in any exalted thoughts I have of myself. His Spirit will show me my unworthiness and utter helplessness. Like John, I know I am not worthy to carry His shoes. It is only by His grace and the power of the Holy Spirit that anyone can serve Him. To get there, He must baptize me. Being immersed in a tank or a river indicates that I have yielded myself to Him, but it does not change my life. Only the power of God can do that.