Consuming Fire

Read:

Hebrews 12:28-29 Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.

What it speaks to me today:

When you are cleaning a room, there are multiple levels of clean. I know some neat freaks reading this right now have just been triggered. I apologize for this early morning trauma. Take another drink of your coffee, take a deep breath, and give me a chance to explain. 

• The 1st level is the one you do as a kid when your parents tell you to pick up your room, and you just hastily get everything off the floor and shoved somewhere. There. It's "clean." 

• The second level is actually getting out cleaning rags and your preferred cleaning liquids, and getting to work: the obvious spaces, most used surfaces, floors, counters, etc. "It's good and clean."

• The third level is the deep clean, where every nook and cranny gets touched. Furniture gets moved, baseboards get a facelift, the very top bookshelf no one can even see gets dusted, the full white glove treatment. "That is C-L-E-A-N, CLEAN."

I was pondering on these verses while I was cleaning(somewhere between the 2nd and 3rd level) and it occurred to me that fire doesn't have "levels" of burning. Fire consumes whatever it burns. The very nature of fire is to consume. The refining fire of God consumes what it touches... and we want that. We don't want to leave any part of our heart or mind not consumed by the fire of God. We don't want to say, "God have my Sundays, my morning devotionals, my afternoon prayers, but leave my nights and weekends for me." We don't want to say, "God you have my love, my worship, my adoration. But leave my anger towards my coworker and my bitterness toward my family member." We WANT to say: "Have it all Father. Every bit of me, for you. It is for my best, and for your glory."

Samuel Chadwick, a Wesleyan minister at the turn of the 20th century said this, "The soul's safety is in its heat. Truth without enthusiasm, morality without emotion, ritual without soul, make for a Church without power. Destitute of the Fire of God, nothing else counts; possessing Fire, nothing else matters."

Nothing else matters, our God is a consuming fire.

What it is saying to you?

Are you being consumed? Or do you hold a part back? Is it fear that keeps you from turning it over? Control? Shame or guilt?

What are we going to do about it?

Whatever we face today, ask the Father to consume us in it. That His will, His ways, His love, grace, and mercy consume us and walk through our day with us.