The Fire is Coming

Testimony of fire from Len at the end of last year.

I had a dream/vision of fire, I could see smoke, I could taste smoke, I could smell smoke, then I felt the heat of the fire around me consuming me. I was in a fire and the heat and intensity of that fire surrounded me and woke me up. I was totally convinced that I was in the midst of a burning fire. I jumped out of bed and looked next to the bed, nothing. I then moved around the room looking but nothing, I ran to the kitchen nothing, looked in the lounge nothing – I walked back to the bedroom and by then Linda was awake she said you have been dreaming. As I mediated on this very intensity of the incident … I then heard the Lord say “I Am a consuming FIRE“(Hebrews 12:29)

Psalm 39:3-4 “My heart was hot within me; while I was musing, the fire burned. Then I spoke with my tongue: “Lord, make me to know my end, and what is the measure of my days, that I may know how frail I am.”

Jeremiah 20:9b “But His Word was in my heart like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I was weary of holding it back and I could not.”

We learn here to accept that our God, who is full of love, can also be a God that will consume the impurities in our lives until only the PURE GOLD of CHRIST is visible, and REMAINS.

THE CONSUMING OF GOD is the process where we are changed into His Image and Likeness — “to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13).

Fire is used in the process of purification of metals

– God uses fire in our circumstances to purify and mould us. We need to recognize that this is God who is doing a good work in us.

1 Peter 4:12 “Do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you.”

Testing is the time of trying and proving, to bring out the purity.

In 1 Peter 1:7 we read, “…that the genuineness of your faith; being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire.”
The Holy Spirit is — “Lighting His fire within us”

The New Testament altar serves as a picture of our commitment to the Lord.

As believers in Jesus Christ, we are called upon to offer our bodies as “living sacrifices” (Romans 12:1) “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.”

Are we engulfed by the divine gift, the inextinguishable fire of the Holy Spirit? John the Baptist prophesies that Jesus will be the One to “baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire” (Matthew 3:11)

When the Holy Spirit began His ministry of indwelling, in the early church, He chose to appear as “tongues of fire” resting on each of the believers. “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them”
(Acts 2:3-4).

Fire is a manifestation work of the Holy Spirit.He brings God’s presence, God’s passion, and God’s purity.
The Holy Spirit is the presence of God as he indwells the heart of believers

Scripture says the “righteous shall live by faith” (Romans 1:17) and “without faith it is impossible to please God”(Hebrews 11:6). We shouldn’t have to feel God to know He’s there.

As Christians we are in the Spirit. For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. (Romans 8:13)

In the New Testament, God guides and comforts His children with the Holy Spirit dwelling in our bodies — the “tabernacle” and the “temple of the living God”
(2 Corinthians 5:1)

The Holy Spirit creates the passion of God in our hearts.

While traveling on the Emmaus road the two disciples talked with the resurrected Jesus, they describe their hearts as “burning within us” (Luke 24:32). “And they said to one another, “Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?”

When the apostles received the Spirit at Pentecost, they had a passion that lasted a lifetime and a boldness to speak the Word of God. (Acts 4:31).
The Holy Spirit produces the purity of God in our lives

God’s purpose is to purify us (Titus 2:14), “Who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.”
The Spirit is the agent of our sanctification (1 Corinthians 6:11), “And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.”

We are washed – This washing implies the admission to the benefits of Christ’s salvation.
Justification – from condemnation through the righteousness of God in Christ by faith.
(Romans 1:17)
Sanctification– the setting apart from the world, and adoption into the Church; the setting apart of one as consecrated by the Spirit in the eternal purpose God.

His fire cleanses and refines – As the silversmith uses fire to purge the dross from the precious metal, so God uses the Spirit to remove our sin from us.

“For You, O God, have tested us; you have refined us as silver is refined.” (Psalm 66:10)

“The refining pot is for silver and the furnace for gold, but the LORDtests the hearts.”
(Proverbs 17:3)

This same “fire” needs to be burning in our hearts as believers. The ZEAL OF LORD is a fire which in visible in our lives as the Presence, Purity, Passion, Power and Approval.

Today – the voice of God is very clear — There is a stirring deep within our hearts.
A burning of the Holy Spirit fire that HE intends “to be poured out” to also break out in our lives, our homes, our churches, our cities and our nation.

The qualification for us is – “these men have been with Jesus”

Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus. (Acts 4:13)

This is an opportune time “kairois” to cultivate and maintain a heart on fire for God which requires a regular intake of God’s Word

An attitude of praise, worship and thanksgiving.
A purity of heart, body and soul.
A service to others, a sense of commitment to glorify God and to finish the race.
A heart on fire releases love for God and for our fellow human beings.