SUPERNATURAL FIRE PT.1
God wants to work in us His power. His might. His supernatural. Yet, I believe that without this supernatural fire in our life, the fullness of God will not be able to flow fully through us, and we will not be able to come into the fullness of what God has called us into.
What is fire? The phenomenon of combustion manifested in light, flame and heat. Fire in the natural has many attributes; we use it for cooking, burning, heat and so much more. It can be used for good or bad.
There is a supernatural fire that God is releasing in this season.
Deuteronomy 4:24: For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.
Let me set the record straight that God loves you. He knows what is best for you and what is not. This consuming fire is not against you. This consuming fire rages with love for you. When He is talking about consuming fire, He is saying, “I want to consume everything in your life that distracts you from my love and from the purpose I have created you for.”
God wants to consume (to do away with completely) all the idols in your life. Idols are things that are made with our own hands. It’s not God’s work; it’s our own.
Exodus 24:17-18: To the Israelites, the glory of the Lord looked like a consuming fire on top of the mountain. (18) Then Moses entered the cloud as he went on up the mountain. And he stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights.
Exodus 32:1: Now when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make us gods that shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”
Idolatry is extravagant admiration for or devotion to something other than God. Putting things before God. We make idols when we are either disappointed with God’s ways or feel as though His timing is delayed.
There are …
IDOLS OF THE HEART. Self-worship and exaltation
IDOLS OF THE HOUSE. Spouse-worship. Putting our children, family and friends before God. They have more influence on our decisions than God
IDOLS OF THE SHOP. Thing-worship. Things become more important than the King. Things become a distraction. (God doesn’t mind you having things; He just doesn’t want things having you!)
IDOLS OF THE WORLD. Culture-worship. Fear of man. The ways of the world and the status quo are more important and of value than Kingdom culture.
IDOLS OF THE SANCTUARY. Pastor-worship. Putting the spiritual leader in the place of God.
Step Into the Refiner’s Fire.
Malachi 3:2-5: But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire and like launderers’ soap. (3) He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver; He will purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer to the Lord an offering in righteousness.
God is not releasing a forest fire that destroys indiscriminately. Nor is He releasing an incinerators fire that completely destroys. But a refiner’s fire that purifies. It melts down the bar of silver or gold, separates out the impurities that ruin its value, burns them up, and leaves the silver and gold intact. He is like a refiner's fire.
Two important things about the Refiner’s fire
The Refiner’s fire separates.
God’s refining fire separates you from the things that ruin your value. He wants to burn up the lust, anger, rage, jealousy, comparison, gossip, unforgiveness, offense and bitterness. I hear God saying, “That it is not who you are, and I want to deal with it NOW.” You are valuable to the Lord. So he doesn’t want to just raise your value; He wants to remove the things that de-value you.
The Refiner’s fire test.
Zechariah 13:9: This third I will put into the fire; I will refine them like silver and test them like gold. They will call on my name and I will answer them. I will say, ‘They are my people,’ and they will say, ‘The Lord is our God.’
The Refiner’s fire tests us. We must be able to discern between the Lord’s test and the enemy’s test. Simply put, the enemy tests you so you can disobey God. God tests you to show you what’s in your heart. He will test you with His Word.
Jeremiah 23:29: "Is not My Word like fire," declares the LORD.
To test is not to tempt but to prove and examine. For example, God might ask you to give in an offering. Your response to the Word of the Lord will prove what is in your heart. The fire was the Word of the Lord. It revealed what was in your heart, and now you have the choice to allow God to burn up that disobedience so that your heart will be tenderer to the Lord’s voice.
Psalms 139.23: Search me, O God, and know my heart: Try me and know my anxieties; and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
So, ask God today for this supernatural fire. The fire that consumes every idol. The Refiner’s fire that separates what devalues you. The Refiner’s fire that comes to test and prove what is in our hearts.