The Fire of God for Today
“There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush ... God called to him out of the bush ... ‘Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground’”
Two weeks ago, we shared together in Pentecost, also called the birthday of the church. The scene related in Acts 2 depicts a group of regular people, folks actually clueless about what they were supposed to do. They had gathered together; but they had little direction. Suddenly they became transformed into an inspired body of newly energized believers. Luke, the author of Acts, describes the event using fire as an apt metaphor.
His words evoke previous biblical scenes, much like the fires of Exodus guiding confused and complaining people through a vast wilderness. Ancient sacrifices were burned on alters to symbolize hopes transformed into prayers that would drift to the sky in the direction of the divine. And Moses’ burning bush experience related above, a bush “on fire but not consumed” demonstrated both energy for the present need along with grand potential for all that was to come.
As Luke connects the Hebrew past with those early Christians and their remarkable transformation, the fire of the Bible, this fire of God, also represents the latent spiritual potential in us.
John Wesley, an Anglican preacher in the 1700s, was an English evangelist who experienced this warming and transforming fire. A highly disciplined man in every phase of his life, deeply committed to sharing the Gospel, concerned about the vast numbers of poor and oppressed and outcast and unfulfilled people, he devoted his life to preaching and teaching the Gospel. Yet, throughout his own early ministry, he later confessed to his own deep confusion and an inner and unmet longing.
All that changed on the evening of May 24, 1738. The following experience Wesley recorded in his journal:
In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one
was reading Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before
nine, while the leader was describing the change which God works in the heart
through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed.
Fire transforms. And the fire of God’s presence is still very much alive and well. In the midst of our confusion and complexities, God uses the energy of new hope and the warmth of growing love to power your spiritual potential.
So, make this first weekend in June a time of discovery, of change, of new direction through new insight and inner transformation. Let the fire of God burn in you and bring about change that makes a difference. May your heart and your life, too, be strangely warmed.
Love,
David
David Jordan
Senior Pastor