Set Us On Fire!

Proverbs 30:15-16 (KJV)

"The horseleach hath two daughters, crying, Give, give. There are three things that are never satisfied, yea, four things say not, It is enough: The grave; and the barren womb; the earth that is not filled with water; and the fire that saith not, It is enough."

Hebrews 12:29

 "Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: For our God is a consuming fire. "

This verse in Hebrews means that our God is never finished. He never reaches a point where He says you're holy, spiritual, disciplined, or cleansed and purified enough. God's fire is never finished in your life. God's will and purpose for our lives go far beyond just touching us; He wants to consume our lives with His holy fire.

Hebrews 1:7

"And of the angels he saith, Who maketh his angel's spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire."

God has not just called us to be ministers on fire, but he has called and anointed us to be ministers of His holy fire.

1 Peter 4:10

"As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God."

Ministers and stewards are the same thing; their purpose is to manage or oversee the goods of another; they are responsible for distributing what has been placed in their care to meet the needs of those they serve.

God has given us the blessing of the indwelling of His Holy Spirit, and in doing so, He has made us stewards and ministers of His fire. He has placed His holy fire in each of us and thus has "Set us on fire," but we are not just to be on fire for him; we must become distribution centers from which his fire is released and poured out as a blessing on those He has chosen for us to minister to.

God and fire are inseparable. Fire has always been a symbol of God's divine presence and power. There is a three-fold operation of the fire of God concerning our lives: The fire of God to you, the fire of God in you, and the fire of God through you.

I am a diabetic, and I am supposed to take four shots of insulin each day, and if I do, my life is manageable. But if all I do is open the door of the refrigerator and see the vile of insulin in the door, or if I pick up the vile of insulin and touch it for a few seconds, then put it back and shut the door, my life slowly becomes a wreck, and I quickly become a burden to my family instead of a blessing. I have to inject the insulin into my body, or it does me no good, and I am no good to anyone else.

Anyone can see the fire, but it's not the fire you see that changes your life; it's the fire you receive. We can read about the power of God in His Word and go to church and see the transformational power of the Holy Ghost service after service. Still, it is not until you open your heart to the inward sanctifying, cleansing, and purging fire of God's presence that your life changes, and you become a vessel fit to carry the anointing.

It's not what we say about God that changes lives; it's the quantity and quality of the presence and character of God that is manifested through us that changes lives. Let me say it another way: You must be infected before infecting someone else. You can talk about a virus or disease and how contagious it is, but unless you're infected by it, there is no danger of the person hearing you being infected. It's the same with the fire of God. We can talk about the Holy Ghost and power, but until His presence consumes us, no one around us will be consumed.

I Corinthians 2:4-5

"And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God."

The fire of God wants to come into your life and make you a minister of fire.

Isaiah 4:4-5

"When the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning. 5 And the LORD will create upon every dwelling place of mount Zion, and upon her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night: for upon all the glory shall be a defense."

First, God shows the fire to you: It's beautiful to see somebody on fire for God. It draws you and creates a hunger, but even if you don't see it in an earthen vessel near you, you can see it in the Word of God.

Second, if you allow it, God places the fire in you: Purging, cleansing, and sanctifying. God's Holy Spirit is living in you and burning up all the clutter and the excesses, the selfishness and the sin, your habits, addictions, and attitudes.

And then, as God takes control of your will, you become a minister of Jesus Christ to others as He manifests the fire through you. You become that cleansed and purified vessel through which the fire can flow to others.

There are a lot of people who don't mind being touched by the fire, as long as it's containable, as long as they can determine its heat and intensity. But God will never be satisfied to simply touch you; He wants to consume you: Body, mind, soul, and spirit – God wants it all!

The most remarkable illustration of this truth in God's Word is the story in Judges 15. Sampson catches 300 foxes and sends them out by two into the Philistine's fields; the kicker is they have a fire between their tails. Those foxes were motivated. At the risk of offending some animal activist, I am sure the fire did not simply give off a pleasant glow as they ran through the Philistine's fields; those foxes were on fire.

The fire changed those foxes because the fire consumed those foxes. When the fire hit their flesh, the foxes had a mission: go into the world and spread the fire. The fire changed them and I am confident they were never the same again.

If there was ever a time when the church needed a fresh fire, it's today. We are surrounded by the most significant mission field of all time, but the Philistines are trying to claim it for themselves. It's time for us to be set on fire and set loose in the mission fields around us; it's time for the fire to hit our flesh and consume us with a passion to spread the fire until the fire of a Holy God touches all our world.