Getting Set Ablaze

Getting Set Ablaze

Watch on YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urqS5XGpp94

This past year, we saw a deadly fire sweep through Lahaina killing 97 and destroying one of Hawaii’s cultural centers, as Lahaina used to be the capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom. But you see, that is what fire does, it destroys and decimates everything in its path.

In the natural world when we smell the smoke, see the flames, and feel the heat, something inside tells us to run, to get away as fast as we can, which is actually the right thing to do.

But not so in the Spirit, but unfortunately, it’s what we end up doing anyway.

As I was pondering this, I thought about how we are as Christians and how the church needs to be set on fire. And while we say we would like to be set on fire by the Lord, the truth is that we fear it. So, let me just get this out of the way up front, and that is, let’s not be afraid of God’s holy fire.

In truth many are afraid of the Holy Spirit, because He doesn’t do things our way. We’re afraid that He’ll lead us where we don’t want to go, that He’ll put us in harm’s way, and that He’ll make us do things that might make us look silly, or things we do not want to do.

But that’s not what happens. If He sends us anywhere, He’ll confirm it in our spirit and it will be the most natural thing to do. And in the process He will give to us the strength and ability to do it.

This has been my testimony, or better yet, my series of testimonies since I became a Christian and what eventually saw me not only becoming a pastor, but also what saw me coming to Mesquite.

At the time I was on a sabbatical and beginning to plan out the next move for our church in Las Vegas. Now I had most of my plans drawn out as to what I thought the Lord was leading us into, but then the Holy Spirit interrupted and opened up His word, and my plans went up in smoke, forgive the pun.

The Holy Spirit told me that while I could go back to the church and continue to pastor it, His presence wasn’t going to be there for me any longer. Well, that cut it. I wasn’t going back, but that meant walking into the unknown and into the fire.

And while God may put us in harm’s way, He’ll never leave us nor forsake us, and He’ll give us the strength and courage to endure the hardship and hell’s fiery flames.

And as far as us doing things we don’t want to do or that will make us look silly, personally, I’d rather be foolish for Christ, than be worldly wise and spiritually dead.

Here’s my point, instead of running away from the Holy Spirit’s fire, instead of running away from God’s plan and purpose for our lives, we need to start running to the flames, we need to start fanning to flame the Holy Spirit and get set ablaze. And there are good reasons to do so.

I see this in the Emmaus two. After Jesus’s death and then resurrection, two of Jesus’s disciples, not of the twelve, but those who also followed, left Jerusalem and were on their way to the town of Emmaus. On the way Jesus joined them, and He shared with them everything that the prophets foretold of the coming Messiah.

And after He departed, I loved what they said, and this should our testimony when God’s word is spoken. They said, “Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32 NKJV)

That is God’s holy fire doing its work inside of us to change us and to make us new, and like the Emmaus two, turn our discouragement into new hope.

But before we look at the benefits of God’s holy fire, we need to first understand exactly what fire does. The same fire that melts wax can also harden steel. And the fire of God does both in our lives.

God sends His fire first (1) to burn away the impurities within our lives, and second (2) to toughen up our faith. And this is accomplished through many things, but mostly through the trials we face.

A. Burns Away Impurities

“He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver; He will purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer to the Lord an offering in righteousness.” (Malachi 3:3 NKJV)

The Lord will refine us, and He does so as a refiner of gold and silver. A refiner takes the gold and silver in its natural form and puts it into a pot over a hot fire and begins to melt it down. As it melts, the impurities come to the surface, and the refiner scoops them out and tosses them away.