Do not put out the Spirit’s fire. (1 Thessalonians 5:19, NIV 1978)
As a Californian, I am too often reminded of what fires mean. Though known from the outside for our earthquakes, fires cause us the more regular concern. A hundred acres, a thousand acres, a hundred thousand acres—each of these circles of devastation can move residents in panic and firefighters in preservation.
There is a fullness to Spirit-living and we can miss it by saying to God, “I really don’t want you today.”The most recent major fire in California escalated with the same high winds that made play so difficult during the final round of the Safeway Open at Silverado Resort. Within hours after play was completed, grandstands were burned to the ground. People literally ran for their lives.
Most fires aren’t like this, not literally or figuratively. My golf “fires,” for instance, normally last about eight or nine holes. Tiger Woods’ fire lasted for eight or nine years. Even if all he’s got are those wedges we see him hitting in the viral comeback videos, I’m thinking he would still beat me. There are enough smoldering embers in him for that. Oh well.
But here’s where I hope I am in no way lagging when it comes to fire: allowing for the full flame of the Holy Spirit.
In a deeply meaningful little line to the Thessalonians, Paul wrote that we should not “quench the Spirit”—or, as we read in today’s translation—“put out the Spirit’s fire.” This rendering from the original NIV is allowable because the Greek for quench means “to extinguish things on fire.”
That God might be a fire—or present himself as so—is without question. Moses met God at the burning bush, and the people he led were guided by a pillar of fire. When the Holy Spirit alighted on the disciples at Pentecost, he did so with “what seemed to be tongues of fire.” And the writer of the letter to the Hebrews tied up this bow by harkening back to Moses’ own attestation, “God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 13:20; Deuteronomy 4:24).
Yet as in all matters of faith and life, we have a choice. Will we let this fire burn?
God, of course, will do his work apart from us. His purposes cannot be thwarted by our resistance. But there is a fullness to Spirit-living and we can miss it by saying to God in word or in action, “I really don’t want you today.” I know, fires are scary, sometimes uncontainable things. But this fire, the fire of the Holy Spirit, is the fire that refines us unto reward (1 Corinthians 3:12-14). This fire, the fire of the Holy Spirit, shines in the eyes of the one called Faithful and True (Revelation 19:11-12)—his judgment comes with mercy to those who believe and allow him to burn brightly.
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Jeff Hopper
October 24, 2017
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The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.