July 15th, 21

Our God is an all consuming fire. And now, through our great champion Jesus, God has revealed to us his enduring love. In Him, we have seen a love that will not let us go. In Him. A love has been revealed , the face of God.  And this God is a consuming fire. But this fire does not consume us from the outside and make us stagger back in terror. Rather, it's a fire that consumes from the inside. It renews and restores and heals it cauterizes and forges, and makes new. Those two men on the road to Emmaus felt the fire when the resurrected Christ was walking alongside them. Speaking to their hearts, they said, didn't our hearts burn within us, as he talked with us on the road and explain the scriptures to us. It was not a fire outside of them that was consuming them in judgment. Rather, it was a fire that was revealing God to them, God's love to them. They felt it on the inside, that fire didn't leave them judged and hopeless. No, the fire within was restoring their hope and making them new. It's not the fire of judgment. It's the fire of resurrection and restoration. It is a fire that consumes us from within our champion, Jesus endured the fires of judgment in order that we might experience the restoring fires of his presence. Now with us, now in us, George MacDonald wrote this about the final verse in Our reading today. Love loves unto purity, love has ever imbued the absolute loveliness of that which it behold, therefore all that is not beautiful in the beloved. All that comes between and is not of loves kind must be destroyed. And our God is a consuming fire. All that is not of loves kind will be consumed by his fires of love. And the fires of love will restore us will heal us will make us new. And the prayer of my heart today is that as I come to the word, like those two men on the road to amaze, I will feel the burning within. I will sense his presence. I will sense his correction, his discipline and I will obey and follow him. That's the prayer that I have for my own soul. That's the prayer that I have for my family for my wife, my daughters, my son. And that's the prayer that I have for you. May it be so

You are loved!