Fire!

DAILY BYTE

In our devotions this week we’ve looked at the difficulties of life and how our sinful rejection of God’s loving limits adds to life’s difficulties. We’ve looked at the great feast of salvation that Christ sets before us and how Christ’s work of salvation is so much more than just the forgiving of sin. As we bring this week’s devotions to a close, I’d like to share a captivating story. It illustrates the difference between taking hold of what Jesus came to do, and merely paying lip service to that.

There was once a man who knew the art of making fire. He took his tools and went to a village in the north, where it was bitterly cold. He showed the people there the value of fire, its uses and benefits for cooking and keeping themselves warm. The people were very interested in this great art, and so the man taught them how to make fire. They were deeply grateful that they had learned this art. But before they could express their gratitude to the man, he disappeared. He clearly wasn’t concerned with getting their recognition, he was simply concerned about their well-being, and the well-being of others also.

In fact, he had left to go to another village where it was also bitterly cold, and began to show the people there the value of fire. Once again, the people were very interested in this great art. A bit too interested for the liking of their priests, who noticed that this man was becoming more popular than what they were. They also felt that making fire was not in keeping with their customs and traditions. So they decided to kill the man, which they did.

But they were afraid that the people might now turn against them, so they did a very shrewd thing. They had a portrait of the man made and mounted it on the main altar of the temple. The instruments for making fire were placed in front of the portrait, and the people were taught to revere the portrait and to pay reverence to the instruments, which they dutifully did. The homage and the worship went on, but in that village where it was so bitterly cold, there was no fire.

As you think about your life, with all its difficulties, and your rebellion against God’s loving limits, and your need for the saving work of Christ, my prayer for you is that you wouldn’t miss the essential point of Christ’s coming. My prayer is that you would know the fire of Christ’s redeeming love in your life, not just as an idea, but as a reality. And may that love of Christ so blaze within you, that your very life would be consecrated anew each day to the glory of God.

PRAY AS YOU GO

O Thou who camest from above
The pure celestial fire to impart
Kindle a flame of sacred love
On the mean altar of my heart

There let it for Thy glory burn
With inextinguishable blaze
And trembling to its source return
In humble prayer and fervent praise

Jesus, confirm my heart’s desire
To work, and speak, and think for Thee
Still let me guard the holy fire
And still stir up Thy gift in me

Ready for all Thy perfect will
My acts of faith and love repeat
Till death Thy endless mercies seal
And make the sacrifice complete
(Charles Wesley)

SCRIPTURE READING

Matthew 3:11

[John the Baptist said,] “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”