Wow, the final Bible Bonk for the year 2023!!! I started this segment at an awkward time of year but what an honour and privilege it has been to give you words of encouragement and wisdom, and to have you receive them intently and patiently. I hope in the 9 months of BB you have given birth to something new within you.
Being Spirit led, I’ve decided to conclude with a piece on ‘fires’ because in completing one year and moving into another we enter a space wherein we may be tempted to set things alight all in the name of transformation or “turning over a new leaf”. Well, I remind you instead of being a leaf know that you are a branch! One attached to the most prosperous vine in all the world.
As always, I strongly advise having your Bible (physical or digital) beside you as you read to appropriately find the additional scriptures in brackets provided to supplement the ideas given and help you better receive them.
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When a fire alarm in a public or private place is triggered we are firmly instructed to immediately find the nearest exit and go straight through. We are ordered to wait our turn through the exit, in an orderly manner, and to most definitely refrain from hesitation or the desire to collect any personal belongings. Which for the sake of this essay, I will label instead as perishable possessions. I want us to think closely about why we are instructed not to take our possessions with us to also escape the flames of destruction. Primarily, because doing so will only delay your safe exit, as well as those around you. Secondly, because it is only in the face of true danger do we then begin to actualise they ways in which we are worth more than every piece of product which we can ever call “ours”.
Jesus precedingly said the same thing in Matthew 24 in a discussion of the end of time. Though the entire chapter tells us the signs of Jesus’ return, it also tells us what to do in preparation and what we should already be doing during this period. Many of us fall victim to the assumption that the end of the world only means something to God, who will be doing all the heavy lifting and we as the elect wait and look pretty with our lamps until we are swept away with Him by the four dividing winds (see Revelation 7). This could not be further from the reality of it all. Jesus references chapters 11 and 12 of the Book of Daniel that discusses ‘an abomination of desolation’ which will surely occur when a king of great corruption will take control. The writer of Daniel goes on to list all the great tragedies that will befall the nation in this time but what really struck me is verse 33; “And those of the people who understand shall instruct many; yet for many days they shall fall by sword and flame, by captivity and plundering.” What I aim to inform you in this last BB of 2023 is that the elect will have a grave responsibility in the last days on earth, rightly so if we desire to inherit such a regal kingdom of service, and how fires (of many kind) are an indictive tool given to us by God to recognise His plan and keep the faith.
The fires we serve
Fire is an unmerciful torrent of change. It does not discriminate between father or daughter, person or thing. It is a consumer which I think of like this:
a tongue of fire only erupts when its taste escapes from its initial perimeters due to something which in its attraction to the bending flame, is swept in fast and causes the once timid spark to become relentless in it’s pursuit of devouring everything else it didn’t perceive before.
Picture a candle and a curtain. The flame has only ever known the oily rims of candle wax. But if an incoming draft were to swing the tassels of my bedroom curtains temptingly into the flame, the sample of contact with something other than wax has given the flame much more body and room to explore. And thus we end up with a room going up in smoke. For many of us there are things which we let swing into our flame and cause it to get a taste for things it shouldn’t. The draft of greed, selfishness or lust can ignite the already steady flame of sin and stir upon our lives a heat unbearable.
Fires alarm us about the intrinsic vanity of material things and the fragility of human life. They lay the lesson of not looking back and in the wreckage of said material things enable a re-evaluation of our lives. As I have been discussing fires figuratively so far, let’s now look at how Jesus uses them literally. In Matthew 24:17-18 Jesus says, “Let him who is on the housetop not go down to take anything out of his house. And let him who is in the field not go back to get his clothes.” Jesus is succinctly treating the topic of perishable possessions that I have been talking about. When it comes down to it reader, there is nothing on this earth, shiny or suede, that can ever be comparable to you. Fires are a true evidence of that. They burn things which were once greatly textured and valued and bring them to a burnt nothingness. It has the power to turn a once lively home into a torpid black and inhabitable mush. This is what occurs with our soul when we run to the world, burning and ablaze, believing its false promises to cleanse you of all the “bad auras and chakras” in your life. Sin can not be removed by another sinner. Jesus plainly explains this when the Pharisees accused Him of being an agent of Satan after exorcising a man. In Matthew 12:23-30, ‘(verse 26) If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand?’. In other words He tells us that we cannot fight fire with fire and in a world that idolises destruction and chaos, only the flame of the divine can risk refining (Malachi 3:3).
The fires we crave
I also want to talk about wildfires- again, figuratively. I believe that wildfire is the type of fire which we humans create ourselves. Wildfires are out of control, destructive, obtrusive… damaging. There is no disposition for refinement here and so, in my mind, it is a befitting attribution to mankind as I stress once more that the process of utter transformation is only done by the hand of a sovereign God.
A significant property of wildfires is how its risk grows in extremely dry conditions, such as drought, heat waves and during high winds. I can only think of one God who symbolises Himself as the solution to measures of drought repeatedly… Jesus Christ. John 4:14, Ezekiel 37 and Psalm 42 make mention of this. Certain fires, such as wildfires, are evidence of who we internally crave. The redeeming Spirit of God.
Unorthodoxly, I am going to use arson for better illustration. A common reason behind arson is insurance fraud; a way to get money that will either allow a person to start afresh someplace else or completely remodel properties. Being in no way in agreement with this route of change, there is a socially wide understanding as to why people commit this particular crime. Because we recognise that there is no return from a fire. Nothing can be salvaged and that can give us great delight as humans who just want out, or escape. We want to be remodelled, free of charge. We yearn to be changed but guise it under the need to change our surroundings or environments. No matter how much outward change you make, reader, it is the heart-posture which will always alter the matter of the deal.
The fires in which we are saved
I also want to go back into the book of Daniel and dissect the famous story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego in Chapter 3. Although these three men were not defeated by the insistent hunger of the flame, they were forever changed because it was a fire purposeful for their Godly stories. Verse 25 tells us that God is in our trials with us; verse 21-22 tells us that the fires meant to consume and harm us will instead consume and harm those enemies of ours who pushed us there; and verse 29 gives us a bitter pill to swallow demonstrating how sometimes our trials are inflicted to save a people, known or unknown to us, to ultimately glorify God’s name. Reminding me of one of my favourite teachings of Jesus and how we, like Him, ‘[…] did not come to be served, but to serve […]’ (Mark 10:45). Which can become apparent in the most drastic of ways.
Finally, bouncing back to verse 6 where King Nebuchadnezzar ordered ‘[…] whoever does not fall down and worship shall be cast immediately into the midst of a burning fiery furnace.’ which braces us for the concrete possibility of being ostracized and dumped into fires because by the world as a repercussion of our stance in the narrow way with God (Matthew 5:11-12, 7:13-14). Walking into your 2024 tightening your faith and obedience to God will look like loneliness, boredom, persecution and mockery. But it will resolutely feel like peace, fulfilment and understanding if you faint not (Galatians 6:9). Paul says it best in Romans 8:18, ‘For I consider that the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.’ I write this because I want you to be able to identify what kind of fire you are in and thus be able to select the appropriate tools to combat it.
In the end the fire only ever aims to transport us from the sinned to the Saviour. Will you let it? Assuredly I tell you in Jesus’ fire you will never be scathed, but saved.
-All my fiery love,
Sarah J
Wonderful piece! Thank you so much Sarah for your amazing pieces throughout this year, they truly have touched my heart and allowed to me to reconnect with journaling and praying to God, so thank you very much. I look forward to reading more in the New Year! Much love x