Hebrews 12:29 “For our God is a consuming fire.”
Three times in the Bible you will find this exact phrase, once in Hebrews and twice in Deuteronomy. All three make reference to Jehovah’s power and might, showing all the more reason to fear the Lord our God.
Yet, as I was meditating on the things of God this verse came back to me with another implied meaning. Did not Christ say to lay up our treasure in Heaven? Did Jesus not preach that wood, hay, and stubble would be consumed by fire? Many see this as solely referring to the fire that will permanently end the curse of sin across God’s creation, but those people are wrong.
Our God IS a consuming fire. That is permanent: no on and off switch. Certainly, there are times that God’s fire is used to consume the wicked (see Sodom, Gomorrah, and the cities of the plain). But God is always consuming and He is all-consuming. When someone is saved He consumes their sin and leaves no trace. When you draw nigh to God, and He, in turn, draws nigh to you, God consumes the man-made boundaries between. When we seek His face, He consumes our ignorance and replaces it with the illumination of His Word.
When Job said that after his trial that he would come forth as gold, he was able to speak with certainty because He had already been plunged into the consuming fires of God. Job knew that there was nothing leaking in his faith because God had consumed everything else from Job’s life. How? When Job pursued God with all diligence and priority he forsook all that was contrary to the will of God. Then as Job’s faith waxed stronger, God consumed all that Job rejected as Job instead chose to walk as God had commanded.
The more your desire God, the closer you get to God, the more earnestly you strive to become a good soldier of Christ, the more that God will consume. But Hod does not consume those things which are pure and holy. That’s why Job knew he would come forth as gold, he knew God had already consumed everything that was worthless and that everything remaining was valuable to God.
So many people set conditions for their relationship with God. (I.e. – “I know I need to be back in church, but I need to break some habits I’ve picked up while I was out before I can come back.”) Hogwash! If you desire God more than you desire the wood, hay, and stubble then God will consume all that isn’t valuable in the life of a saint.
Our God is most holy. So holy, that our minds can not comprehend it fully. He is so holy that He consumes anything that is not holy, just as fire consumes everything in its path. By drawing closer to God He will, inevitably, consume all that is not holy. Not out of malice or judgment, but in love. He desires our image to be the image of His only begotten Son, in order to do so the worldliness of our flesh and our carnal possessions my by necessity be given up. So at the moment that we forsake all else but God, the Lord (in love and mercy) consumes those things that would otherwise be a temptation or reminder of what we used to be. But those things are replaced with a clearer image of God and a closer relationship with our Creator.
Your fellowservant in Christ,
-Bro. Jordan Foster
Komentarze