Fresh Fire

Fire symbolizes the guiding presence of God among the people. God appeared to Moses in the form of a burning bush (Exodus 3:2). Fire portrayed God's power, holiness, and protection over his people. The word fire appears 510 times in the KJV version of the Bible, and it appeared when the Apostles needed to be fired up for their faith:

"Then what looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each one of them" Acts 2:3

Last night at our Monday Night Raw meeting we handed out one year and six year chips, and one of the men receiving the 6 year talked about how Jesus had changed his life. Then many comments followed where folks talked about a deep healing they received from either a faith decision or a process of working the 12 Steps. When I left after the meeting I knew that the fire of God had settled on me as a result of His presence in others. And I wasn't even supposed to be leading that meeting.

Often we get complacent in our faith walk, misdirected by the cares and troubles of this world, as well as the multitude of duties of daily life. Things become redundant. We need to have a change of focus and purpose when life beats us down and look back to the original excitement of our faith change. God knows this and sends his Fresh Fire on us in a variety of ways as chronicled in His word.

While we may feel that fire in ministering to others, he often uses the dramatic life changes of others to light the spark within us to realize that spreading the word is all he asks of us and then His Spirit takes over to light the fire in others. When I looked around last night I was encouraged, I was lit with an inexplicable joy to see how he has worked in those that we may have impacted.

And then God brought home the point. Virtually all His greatest warriors were reluctant to serve, David being an exception. They all needed to be lit up with the power of the Lord before they were effective in spreading the Good News. All we can ask is that our sometime reluctance to lead or serve can be fueled into action by that same Fresh Fire.

​Bring it on Lord!

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