“Send the Fire” by Judy Webb

I am just so tired of a Christianity that looks more like a self-help model of managing sin. I am weary of all the words that tell me how I should live my life but yet have no power. I know we should be kind, I know we should love people and that we shouldn’t get drunk and smoke and all the things we shouldn’t do, but we need so much more than a list of dos and don’ts. We need the radical filling of the Holy Spirit of God to so refine us that at the end of the day we had victory not because we tried really hard, we had victory because the Holy Spirit compelled us, fueled us to victory. In Philippians 2:12 it says “Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.” (NIV) The Spirit of God does the work. He is the One who transforms.

A while back I went to see the Giant Sequoias in Yosemite. My husband and I saw a bunch of trees, really, really, big amazingly graceful and beautiful trees. I am not usually the sort of girl to just stare at trees or want to drive 6 hours so we can see them, but this trip was different and these trees were different. These trees are ancient. They began as saplings when Jesus was getting his feet dirty in a lakeside fishing village. They are over 2,000 years old. They tell a story.

They stand nearly 300 feet tall and have a trunk diameter of up to 40 feet. The bark on the trees is up to 3 feet thick and filled with tannin to protect them from fire and insects. They are built to survive. They are built to reach to the top of the canopy and collect the sun, their roots reach out as much as 150 feet just 6 feet below the surface to collect as much of the precious rainfall these trees could possible gather in the arid Sierras. 

They are adapted for one purpose, and one place, and there is a surprisingly essential ingredient to their survival that humans nearly snuffed out for 100 years. They need fire to propagate. They need fire to thrive. The forest service decided fire was dangerous and so they extinguished the natural fires caused by lightning in the forest for nearly 100 years.  Then someone realized that new trees were not growing. The forest floor had become overgrown with white birch trees and debris. The little seeds would not be able to find a home or compete for sunlight. It was more than that though, the trees themselves hold their pine cones hundreds of feet above the forest floor. They remain on their branches safe and green until fire comes.  The heat from the fire causes the cones to dry up and to drop their seeds, millions of them. These little seeds, about the size and appearance of an oatmeal flake, fall from their high perch to a forest floor that is being fertilized by the ashes of the fire. One forestry worker said the seeds fell like snow covering the forest floor. Out of that fire will come thousands of saplings, some will make it to become a mature tree in 500 years, others will be choked out and go back to the earth. But some will end up looking like this:

It challenges me to think of fire as being a necessary in life. 

“Do you see what we’ve got? An unshakable kingdom! And do you see how thankful we must be? Not only thankful, but brimming with worship, deeply reverent before God. For God is not an indifferent bystander. He’s actively cleaning house, torching all that needs to burn, and he won’t quit until it’s all cleansed. God himself is Fire!” Hebrews 12:29 MSG

God, Himself is a fire.  The presence of God on Israel’s journey through the wilderness was marked by fire. The burning fire pot in Genesis 15 was God’s presence. In Acts, it was tongues of fire that came down on the church to show that the Holy Spirit had come to reside with them and in them. God himself is the fire. Fire burns, it purifies, it consumes the dross of our lives, the yucky sinful guck that has long weighed heavy on our hands and hearts. It cuts deep and close and leaves only what is worth having in the first place. It hurts. We want to shield ourselves from the close watch of the Holy Spirit’s gaze. We want to insulate our hearts from really getting close enough to the hot blazing fire of God’s presence. We keep our hearts from the closeness of God so we can hold on to the things that seem safe and comfortable. We determine to live the Christian life without the power of the Holy Spirit working in us because we feel safer, more in control. Our desire to control the environment leaves little room for God to work, and so we strive to be good people, “having a form of godliness, but denying it’s power” (2 Timothy 3:4).

Many churches have asked the Holy Spirit to not be active in their communities. It just felt so much safer and predictable to run it themselves without the interference of a God who is more concerned for our holiness than for our comfort. I am saying today, Lord come and be that consuming fire in the church. Come and clean the dross of our complacency and control freak nature. Come and burn up our pride so that all that remains is your Sweet, Powerful, Awesome Presence, and a church that loves like Jesus, lives like Jesus, knows Jesus. A church that grows, that shares the gospel, where the seeds of truth just fall from our branches like snow on the world around us.

~ Written by Judy Webb ~

I am an average girl with an amazing God. I was never that brave, never really outgoing, and usually afraid of new situations. I would often try to hide who I really was in order to fit into a crowd. I was probably on a road that was going to look mundane and ordinary, but God had extraordinary plans for me. He rescued me from the monotony of existence without Him to a great joy and peace in Him. He set my life on a whirlwind adventure as a missionary in Korea and in Germany. I was given the great joy of sharing my life in Christ with teens on many continents. Today I am wife to Jeff, and mom to Zack and Caleb. When I am not playing with my boys or struggling through spelling words, I love to sit in a living room with a group of ladies and just dig into the Word together. I also love to write about the joy I have in Christ and the truth He teaches me. I am a member of Rivertree Church where I help lead ladies’ Bible Study.

Tags: Christianity, Holy Spirit, judy webb, Send the Fire, Sequoias