Holy Spirit as Fire: Transforming

For he is like refiner's fire and like fuller's soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness. ~ Malachi 3:2b-3
See, I have refined you, but not like silver. I have tested you in the furnace of adversity. ~ Isaiah 48:10
For indeed our God is a consuming fire. ~ Hebrews 12:29

By middle school science class, you probably learned that fire changes things.

 By high school chemistry you really began to see it. (or for those of us who didn't take chemistry, we rely on the experience of those who did, and our own observations!)

 Fire changes our food. Fire changes liquid into gases. Ice into water.

 It changes hard metal into something you can work with to make a tool or weapon.

 And it purifies gold and makes it something beautiful. 

 It consumes and refines.

 And after that happens, nothing is the same.

 No image of the Holy Spirit is perhaps more understandable in terms of how God works on us. 

 Just as we can't encounter fire without being changed, we also can't encounter God without being changed in some way.

 The fire of the Spirit works on us. Heats us up. Molds us. Shapes us.

 The fire of the Spirit ignites passion. It makes things new. It destroys what needs to be destroyed.

 It overwhelms.

 Imagine you are those disciples who had been so scared at Jesus' death that they hid away.

 Imagine now that the fire of the Spirit took hold of you.

 Changed you from the inside out!

 And that fire changed then the course of history? Changed a small group of followers into a revolution!

 Imagine what a fire can do inside of you!
Prayer: Change me, melt me, mold me, free me with the fire of your Holy Spirit! Amen




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