Sermon Central
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The Fresh Fire
Contributed by Daniel Olukoya on Aug 25, 2006 (message contributor)
Summary: More than any other time beloved, we need the fresh Fire of the Holy Ghost upon our lives today.
“Oh that Thou wouldest rend the heavens, that Thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at Thy presence, as when the melting fire burneth, the fire causeth the waters to boil, to make Thy name known to Thine adversaries, that the nations may tremble at Thy presence!”
More than any other time beloved, we need the fresh Fire of the Holy Ghost upon our lives today. Nothing can answer the confusing questions that the enemies are raising today, than the Fresh Fire of the Holy Ghost. When that Fresh Fire falls, the waters will boil. The Bible says: “Out of your belly shall flow rivers of Living Waters” When this water is flowing in you and the Fire of God falls upon it, it will boil and the Name of the Lord will become known to His adversaries and nations will tremble before Him.
This is the secret of the lives of the Apostles; they had fresh fire in them and every prayer meeting was an opportunity to get refreshed and filled again. There was power and fire in the way they moved, in their evangelism and ministrations, and in everything that they did. No wonder they were accused of turning the city upside down. Would to God that we too, can be accused of turning the world upside down for Jesus.
If you want the Fresh Fire of God upon your life, you have to allow the Living water in you to boil. You have to be on fire at all times. The enemy will not come against you when you are on fire; he will only come when the fire goes down. That is why he is always trailing the children of God, so that he can get hold of them at the unguarded hour. When you find out that as you are praying, you doze off and you wake up as your Bible is slipping off your hand, you can only spend a few minutes before the Lord, or you find out that you can hardly sit to read the Bible, or you find out that you hardly witness to people, it means that the enemy is round the corner and you must be careful; the enemy wants to box you to a corner and you must not allow it. If you do not set yourself loose, the enemy will take advantage of you.
Keys to receiving the Fire of God
1. Hunger and thirst for the word of God.
When a person is hungry or thirsty and he or she sees food or drink, the person grabs it with speed, and would almost finish it, before he or she realises it. Both hunger and thirst are feelings that will insist on being satisfied before they leave a person in peace. A Christian cannot get very far with the Lord, if all that he or she does, is read a verse of Scripture per day and if what the person read, is not even understood and digested.
“And He humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that He might make thee know that Man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth Man live”.
“And Jesus answered him, saying: “It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God”.
Some people are depending on what they learnt in the Sunday School, when they were young. Many claim that their brain is getting old and cannot retain anything. It is a pity that God will not take such excuses from anyone. At the same time, the devil will take advantage of their ignorance of the word of God; to deal with them Some are not even bothered. Many people feed their body with all kinds of nourishing food; but when it comes to feeding the spirit with the word of God, they start to slow down. Some people do not even read the Bible; all that they read, is a pamphlet that talks about Bible stories daily. Many Christians are lazy when it comes to reading the word of God. They prefer watching movies that will not help them in any way. Some of the movies or television programs that they watch, were produced by some people who have openly declare that they are not in God’s camp.
The devil knows that the more of the word of God that you have in you, the more powerful you are. He knows that there is power in the word of God and he can weigh a person’s word-level. A pastor used to tell those who find it difficult to sleep at night, to take their Bible and read; before long, they would be fast asleep. It works as sleeping drug for those people because the devil does not want them to read the word of God in the first place. When you are hungry and thirsty for the word of God, there is an indication that things will get better. Some people do not have a complete Bible; all they have is a small collection of the New Testament, which they carry about without reading. When such people get to the church with their incomplete Bible, they are lost when the sermon is taken from the Old Testament. It also means that they cannot examine what they were taught at home. Those who were serious with the Lord as we were growing in the Christian faith are doing something tangible for the Lord now. Those who just attended fellowship for the sake of it, and had no time for the word of God, are still patching up with life today.
