Consuming Fire

"Therefore, let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire."

~Hebrews 12:28-29

In Deuteronomy and Exodus, the Lord is mentioned as “fire.” He is a fire leading the children of Israel out of Egypt, and a consuming fire taking out their enemies. As all of us know, a fire can be a good thing or something terrible. Burning in our fireplace, a fire is warm and comforting but when that fire engulfs a building, it is destructive. Like the children of Israel, we can be comforted by the fire of the Lord when we trust in Him. But for those who do not accept Jesus Christ as their Savior, the consuming fire will be Hell.

"The sinners in Zion are afraid; trembling has seized the godless: Who among us can dwell with the consuming fire? Who among us can dwell with everlasting burnings (Isaiah 33:14)?”

Accepting Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior is the only answer in this life, and for the one to come. Our life here is fleeting. The Bible calls our lives a mist, vapor, shadow, and in 1 Peter 1:24, we are compared to a flower that withers and dies. But what is on the other side of this life is eternity, and where we spend it is determined during this vapor we call life. And the fire of God will reveal it.

“Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire (1 Corinthians 3:12-15).”

Read Colossians

©2018 Marie McGaha