Bad Fire. Good Fire.

"What if we all acted like Jesus, were strong like Jesus, and spoke only like Jesus?"

IS IT GOD’S WAY TO PICK SIDES? Is He on the right or left? Or is it His way to blend both sides together? We’re calling down fire from heaven to devour our enemies when He wants to send fire from heaven to bathe us all in it. One day He will consume the earth with His presence and death will be no more, but today He will consume the earth with His presence and devour death in each of us. We should desire peace, peace for ourselves and peace for our enemies. How we all receive peace is the same. God is our peace. How they find Him is through us. We can pray, we can believe God answers prayer, and we can act like Christ.

We’re too eager to overturn the tables of the moneychangers and shout out judgment. But do you know when Jesus did that, He was Jesus? As in the Savior of the world? The Christ? Okay, just checking. Do you know He’s King of Kings now, and He defeated death and condemned the devil? He is not worried about evil on this planet. He has a plan. Problem is, we’re too busy trying to mental it all out, and it’s spiritual. You gotta be in the Spirit to be spiritual. It’s how it works. And the fruit of the Spirit is … wait for it … love, joy, PEACE (shouted that one), patience, gentleness, goodness, faith, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).

Fun fact, the Holy Spirit is the most self-controlled being of anything anywhere. Because, like, do you really want Him to be out of control? I mean, He blinked, and the Red Sea parted. But I digress. Love, joy, and peace are the first three fruits He produces in us. Not anger, retribution, and judgment. There’s also the list in 1 Corinthians 13 which is about LOVE and tells us how love acts. At the tippy top is kindness. I know, I know, there are some jerkwads out there, but see, here’s the thing. They don’t know Jesus. (Insert smile with teeth showing. That’s Jesus. He’s smiling.)

But instead, we’re looking for fire-burning prophecy. Not the purpose of prophecy nor prophets. They are actually to tell us God’s will for future events so we can align our hearts with His and see them from His perspective. They sometimes have an “if” in them, but where those are affected by our behavior, it’s God’s will that all men repent, find Jesus, walk in love, and receive His goodness. God told us about His judgment on Israel so we wouldn’t do what they did. Then He sent Jesus so we could receive mercy and be made new inside and not do that.

When I was a child and I thought like a child and spoke like a child, sometimes my mom would get onto me and tell me not to do things again, her goal being for me to stop doing those things. Well, God’s the same, only God. Jesus is God. The Holy Spirit is God. The Father is God with all the secrets that Jesus doesn’t know. Okay, I’m exaggerating. But Jesus said only the Father knew when He’d return, so that’s worth consideration. (And that the Father was greater than Him. He said that, too.) But at the same time, they’re perfectly united, and they are love, and they are mercy, and they are longsuffering; and we are made like them because of salvation they provided. The acceptance given to us is extended to every man and woman on this planet.

We are to stand firm in our faith in the face of ungodliness, yes. We are to pray for boldness like the church in Acts, definitely. But we are to look like Jesus all the time, and He loved the unlovely so much He died in their place. We are now as His children to WALK IN THE SPIRIT. When we do that, we will only speak what God wants us to speak. Walking in the Spirit, or being led of the Spirit, means laying down our will. Sometimes, we want to react. We want people to “get what’s coming to them,” but God only does that as the last-last-last bottom line, and He hurts when it happens. He doesn’t like hurting people because He sent Jesus to save people.

The only fire we should desire is the Holy Spirit to light us up. The only anger we should embrace should be directed at the stupid fathead devil (and not the people full of the devil). We should be carriers of peace, so full of God’s peace that we’re immoveable, unfazed by pressure, by hatred, by ignorance. Our minds renewed to think like God, we no longer see our perspective at all. Just think what would happen if the body of Christ (the church) would do that. What if we all acted like Jesus, were strong like Jesus, and spoke only like Jesus? I’m thinking that famed reformation would happen, and Jesus would return. Because Word is, He’s coming for a spotless bride without any wrinkles or blemishes who got that way because He loved her. And this is our commission. We are to go ye into the world, not to body slam it, not to harangue government with endless marches, not to criticize people who, though they are seriously wrong, have no idea they are seriously wrong. Nor to be weak and wishy-washy, pale examples of the church Christ created.

Love isn’t weak. It’s assured, convicted, and courageous. Love also has no part with iniquity. Love has backbone. Love has no fear. Love speaks with wisdom and grace. Love never fails. So if what we’re doing is failing then where is our love? Or if it looks like it’s failing, where is our perspective? Because the God who is love already declared the ending, and when it’s all over but the shouting, God who was on the throne at the Beginning will be on the throne at the Ending, only we who were caught up in the air with Him will be at His side, surrounding Him, full of fire and glory, and without nametags.

Bad Fire:
“And when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did? But he turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. And they went to another village.” (Luke 9:54-56)

Good Fire:
“And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.” (Acts 2:1-4)

Image by Stephane VERNEY from Pixabay


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com