Dear Ones:
There is a difference between the presence of God and the “manifest” presence of God. It is the same in the life of a Christian, a disciple of Christ. Christ is present by His Spirit, but is He manifested in the life? When Moses led his sheep to the backside of the desert, where Mt. Horeb was located, he did not know that God was present, “more real than the air that he breathed.” However, when he SAW the burning bush, burning but not consumed, and then heard the voice of “the Angel of the Lord,” his perspective changed. God was always present, but there came a moment when He deliberately manifested Himself. How did He reveal Himself? By fire…a quiet burning…and yet, the bush was not consumed, or destroyed.
When the disciples, on the day of Pentecost, met in the upper room, the Spirit was poured out upon them, according to the prophecy of Joel. There was the apparent “tongues of fire” manifestly resting upon all the disciples. As in the experience of Moses, God reveals Himself by fire, but the disciples, like Moses’ burning bush, are not consumed. What are we getting at here? It is simply that God is always present, but His quiet glory (…in this case revealed by fire) is manifested at specific times. How does this apply to us?
In Jeremiah 20:9, we read: “But His word was in mine heart as a BURNING FIRE shut up in my bones…” In a parallel passage in Luke, we read the testimony of two disciples how had been met by the Lord Jesus on the road to Emmaus: “Did not our hearts BURN within us, while He (Christ) talked with us by the way, and while He opened to us the Scriptures?” (Luke 24:32) The word of God was given to Jeremiah to know, and to proclaim to Israel. But there is a vast difference between the objective word of God, and the effective working of the word of God “… (burning) in our bones.” When Jesus purified the temple by driving out all the “changers of money,” it was written that the disciples remembered what was written of Him in the Psalms: “The zeal of Thine house hath eaten me up.” (John 2:17) There was a burning flame in the heart of Christ, a burning zeal for the glory of His Father, and the doing of His will. The point is this…when the Spirit of God is in the heart, and the believer is truly trusting God for the knowledge and out working of His will, there will be the consequent “burning,” desire and “zeal” to believe God for the full outworking of His will.
In the book of Hebrews, we read: “…Who makes His angels spirits, and His ministers a FLAME OF FIRE.” (Heb. 1:7) The Spirit of God is not only given to us to revive us, restore us, but to quicken us…stir us up…put within us Christ’s zeal to love and serve God. If ever we needed to be “stirred up” to seek God, and those things above (Col. 3:1), it is NOW. Scripture tells us that “TODAY is the day of salvation…,” and that we are to redeem the time, being about our Father’s business…as was Christ.
Dear Father, the quiet glory of Christ’s zeal is resident in our hearts by virtue of the Spirit’s presence. Quicken us by Thy Spirit, stirring us up to seek Thee, and the fulfillment of Thy purposes and will. Save us from settling down to something less than Thy highest and best. As Wesley so clearly wrote: “Give us IN THIS HOUR TO PROVE..the sweet omnipotence of Thy love.” In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Love, Dad