As Betty and I came home from the Corrales Harvest Festival yesterday (pictures to come in a couple of days), we saw another fire in the Jemez Mountains to the North of us. Fortunately, this is a smaller fire than the one earlier in the Summer and they expect to be able to contain it with little trouble.
Between Arizona, Texas and New Mexico, it’s been a year of destruction by fire.
That got me thinking about fire in the Bible. It’s a powerful image. Here are just a few of the images of fire in God’s word.
Fire will reveal our work and on what foundation it is built upon.
If any man builds on this foundation (Jesus) using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work. (1 Corinthians 3:12-13)
God is fire – and a consuming one at that.
Do not put out the Spirit's fire… (1 Thessalonians 5:19-20)
Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our "God is a consuming fire." (Hebrews 12:28-29)
Our tongues can be fire – and not good fires.
The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. (James 3:6)
Fire can refine that which is not pure – gold or our faith.
These have come so that your faith — of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire — may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. (1 Peter 1:7)
God will use fire to cleanse the earth in preparation for the New Earth.
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. (2 Peter 3:10)
Fire can warm us, cook our food, refine our metals and be an element of enjoyment and sharing on a cold night. At the same time it can destroy – literally and figuratively – and be used by God to cleanse.
Fire!
1 comment:
Powerful stuff.
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