On Fire for the Lord
Scripture lesson, Exodus 3:1-5: “Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law; the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb. And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt. And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I.”
I don’t have to explain the characteristic of heat from fire. You know that if you put your hand in the flames of a gas stove, you will get burned. You know that if you light a candle and put your fingertip in that flame it will burn. We also know that fire can be a cleansing agent, or it can destroy completely as when God rained down fire from heaven to consume the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, but Moses discovered a deeper lesson about fire.
Moses, having been in the desert for 40 years, had seen bushes burning before. With the heat of the sun bearing down on the plants of the desert, the bushes would sometime spontaneously combust. But the bush that Moses saw was just a little different. The bush burned, yet it was not consumed by the flame.
As Moses goes in to take a closer look at the phenomenon, the Lord speaks to Moses from the flames of the bush. God in all his purity and power is represented by the fire.
The flame that Moses saw was on the outside, but if we want the Lord to speak to us, we must have a fire burning on the inside.
To be on fire for the Lord, we must:
1. Recognize the need to have a burning bush on the inside. The bush represents holiness and the strength of God. As mere humans we are too weak to face all the challenges and adversities of life in our own strength. We need someone to fight battles and to forgive us daily of our sins.
2. We must create an atmosphere that welcomes the Spirt of God. Acts 2:1-4 says, “And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”
3. It is here that I want to remind you that the people, though they were sitting, were in the mist of doing something to welcome the Holy Spirit. They were praying, fasting, and meditating. They were tarrying for the Holy Spirit. They were being obedient because Jesus himself told them to tarry, not wait, but to tarry, to have and extended association with God. There must be something on the inside that will allow the fire to burn. Just as the bush in the desert burned, the Holy Spirit represents the purity and passion of God and brings believers into the presence of God.
1. We must recognize the body as a holy vessel. Moses had to remove his shoes before he could walk on “Holy Ground.” Our bodies were created in the image of God and should be treated as precious gifts that are more precious than money or more precious than diamonds.
Leviticus 6:12 called for the fire on the altar to be kept burning. The priest was charged with not letting the fire go out so that constant communication and connection could be kept with God. Your fire should be kept burning as a reminder that our bodies are an offering to the Lord.
A life lived for God, a Christian on fire for the Lord, will shine a light into any situation in which believers are present. Being on fire will sometime call for us to speak boldly, following the principles of God, or sit and reflect the peace that is only made manifest by the constant communication with God. Being on fire is active and passive at the same time. It is a calling for all Christians.
St James AME Church is located at 360 Dorothy Street in Charleston. Worship service is held on the first and third Sundays of each month at 11 am and is also on Zoom - pastorv.com.
