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Jan 09, 2024 06:00am

A Fiery Faith

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Fire.

It’s typically a good thing, right? It can be used to cook food. It can be used to keep us warm. It can be used to light our way in the dark.

But it can also burn, destroy, and even kill.

You see, fire is a dangerous thing. It’s good from a distance…but it’s not safe. Perhaps that’s why God often manifested as fire in the Old Testament.

He was a burning bush when He called Moses to lead his people out of slavery. He was a pillar of fire when He led those freed children to their Promised Land. He was a consuming fire on Mount Sinai when He gave those same children laws to live by.

Fire is God’s thing.

In each of these circumstances, people saw God as fire but kept a safe distance away from it. You see, friends, they knew that God was good…but He wasn’t safe.

Manifesting as a fire, God produced holy awe and deep respect in those who experienced it. It’s that holy awe that I think we’ve lost over the generations. We focus so much on God being good and forgiving and kind (and He is all of those things), that we can forget to honor and respect Him in how we live our lives.

Case in point: priests in the Old Testament.

During this time, priests had very specific rules to follow in order to get close to the ark of the covenant, which represented the presence of God. Outside the temple, they had a bronze altar in which sacrifices were made. You see, a sacrifice always had to initiate the relationship of drawing close to God. After the sacrifices were made, the priests had to cleanse themselves before entering this holy temple. Coming into the temple, they would see the bread of life on the table and a lamp stand that burned continually. Amid all this, incense was burning morning and night.

The priest would enter the holiest of holies once a year to atone for the people’s sins. The incense provided a shroud of smoke, a protective covering of sorts, from the presence of God as they sprinkled blood on the ark as a sacrificial offering. If one entered this sacred space unauthorized, or if they were careless or flippant in their posture of approaching God, they experienced the fire of God and were burned on the spot.

Yes, burned on the spot. Yikes. (This is where all those mind-blown, wide-eyed, and shocked-faced emojis would apply perfectly.)

A priest would have to tie a rope to him or wear bells for fear that if he was put to death, people would have a way of knowing something was wrong and could retrieve his body from such a sacred place.

They knew then what we often forget today: God is good, but He’s not safe. A healthy respect and a reverent attitude went into such a sacred space.

This is called fearing the Lord. We think of fearing God as a bad thing, but in the Bible, it’s being in awe of Him and His holiness. It’s something we often miss, or dismiss, in our culture today. In Leviticus 19:2, God, through Moses, calls for His people to “be holy, for I am holy.” Holiness emerges in the way we live our lives – through our words and our actions. It’s an outpouring of our hearts for the Lord. It’s turning away from those things that offend Him. Holiness is something we, as Christians, can easily forget.

Deep Cleaning

As a mama, I can’t stand a dirty house. In fact, I try to clean my house at night so that I can wake up to a clean house in the morning. But, with morning, comes the sunlight. The brighter and brighter the sun streams in, the more and more I see that my cleaning is not good enough. While I did surface cleaning, I didn’t do the deep cleaning.

I wonder: How many of us are good at surface cleaning in our lives, but we don’t do the deep cleaning we need to go deeper with God?

Gulp…it’s me. I am guilty. Deep cleaning takes time and intention, and many times in my life, I don’t like to take the time it takes to purse and get clean. In essence, I don’t like facing my dirt. It’s just easier to move on with life than deal with the tough stuff.

Maybe this is you, too?

You see, dirt can manifest in all sorts of ways.

It can be a bad habit.

It can be the words that come out of your mouth…or the words that don’t.

It can be actions you take…the actions you choose not to take.

It can be the thing you bow down to, giving more time and attention than God.

Or, it can be not believing God enough in life.

An interesting thing happens when we choose to draw closer to the light of God through holiness: it exposes the “dirt” in our lives. In His loving kindness, God shows us what is holding us back from experiencing Him on a deeper level.

Oh friends, fearing God isn’t being afraid of Him – it’s being scared of living life without Him. It’s a willingness to turn away from the things that shun Him and to turn to Him for help and guidance. It’s approaching Him with repentant, reverent attitudes. It’s obeying Him completely.

Just like fire, God is good, but He’s not safe.

“Be holy, for I am holy.” It’s not just a command…it’s a way of living.

A holy awe.

A fiery faith.