Consuming Fire

Those were the days when my whole being praised the Lord, moved by the beauty of “first love.” I can still feel my heartbeats tumbling out of rhythm

in the race of total surrender to something within me that made every nook and cranny of my reason overflow with enthusiasm and joy. My faith grew with every step. The world and life radiated a new light. The event of Christ in my life was proclaimed without ceasing. Proclaiming Him became devotion, and devotion is a matter of God. My personal vision of Christ opening His arms to me was an obsessive apparition. He took possession of my mind, and before long I began mending the torn saddlebags of worldly consciousness with heavenly threads, allowing myself to glide along a spiritual channel where I knew beforehand that everything I would find, even in times of misery, was a blessing.

The word love began to take on a new dimension; it was a new discovery of myself. I never suspected that the supernatural feeling flowing from God’s love could bring out the best in me…and I sang…Back then I did not know even a single song of praise, but I would invent one; I sang to my God, softly, loudly, shouting for joy. During my first family vacation after coming to the Lord, I wept like a child one afternoon as I watched the sun disappear over the horizon, and there emerged my first attempts at poetry—innocent and stark, yet laden with gratitude and sincere emotion. How loved I felt! My tears sprouted hummingbird wings and quickened my feet, my soul, and my senses!

But one day, when I least expected it and amid the full blaze of my enthusiasm for my Savior, someone flung these words in my face: “Be careful: God is not only love, but also a consuming fire.”

No one can imagine the negative effect such words can have on the joyful heart of a new convert, especially when they come from a brother supposedly mature in faith and fellowship with God. That night, quite literally, I was consumed in the flames of innocence and confusion. I could not understand that new feeling—a mixture of love and apocalyptic dread toward a God who had now become incomprehensible to me because of a supposedly biblical yet devastating remark. I panicked…and plunged—perhaps for the first time—into the Word. The first thing I discovered was just how superficially the Scriptures had been handled in order to minister to a new creation in Christ, who at that time needed only to have his faith and trust in God reaffirmed. Over time, studying the word fire in the context of God has ministered to my life, and on more than one occasion I have asked my King to let His fire consume me (to extinguish forever the contrived strategies for trying to please Him, the temporary turns toward self-centeredness and self-sufficiency, and the fleeting and disturbing reappearances of the old man who already died on the Cross almost a decade ago), so that the Christian who knows himself to be victorious in Christ Jesus may emerge and endure.

The good news is that Christ, who clothes us in His holiness, gave us 2,000 years ago the immeasurable benefit of His grace through a glorious new covenant—sealed by His death and resurrection—in which love is the most ardent flame of His purifying fire. Having sanctified, justified, and redeemed us in His Son Jesus Christ, God does not intend to annihilate us, extinguish us, or erase us from the geography of His pastoral map. No, not us! Judgment will come with fire (Revelation 19), but we have been baptized by Jesus with the Holy Spirit and fire (Matthew 3:11). Whoever abides in Christ need not fear. We are part of an unshakable kingdom, and our hope is founded upon an indestructible foundation. Christ is now the fire that consumes us. In Him we are not condemned (John 5:24; Rom. 8:1); instead, there is a heavenly longing to bless us with every spiritual blessing.

God longs to merge with you, consume you with His embracing fire, and make you one in Him.

God bless you!