This is a picture of the fountain in our back garden, outside our sun room window. The Arctic Blast has brought ice down here to south Louisiana. But the sun will wipe out this ice in a flash. For the sun is like God in one way.
What am I talking about?
Well, whenever there was a sacrifice made at the Old Testament altar there was the priest, the worshiper, and the sacrifice. But there was always something else at the scene. In fact, it is this something else that made the offering an effective sacrifice.
FIRE!
Every sacrifice was laid upon the altar, and a fire consumed it. Some offerings were actually consumed by a fire that fell from heaven. In Leviticus 9, when God was establishing Aaron and his sons as priests, the Lord God required a sacrifice of a goat, a calf, a lamb, an ox and a ram, as well as a grain offering. Pieces of each were burned separately until a pile of the animals was left on the altar. Then fire, not from the altar, came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering! The children of Israel saw it, gasped aloud in shock, and fell on their faces in awe before the LORD.
At the dedication of Solomon’s temple, when the king had finished his prayer, “fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the LORD filled the temple” (2 Chron 7:1).
And who can forget the scene on Mt. Carmel when Elijah faced off with the prophets and priests of Baal, where God’s fire came down and consumed Elijah’s offering, including the wood, the stones and the dust, and licked up the water that had doused the offerings and overflowed into trenches! (I Kings 18:38)
When a sacrifice is made, there is fire! Fire from heaven. This fire comes down and consumes the offering, completely laps it up and the sacrifice becomes a part of the fire. Is this what happens when God has a breakthrough in our lives? We need to get out of our souls when we become sick of ourselves, sick and tired of our diseased thinking and behavior, our selfishness, and our petty devotion to small idols.
We need to come to the Father in our new heart, our new spirit, In Christ, Who lives in us, and offer our bodies as a living sacrifice to Him (Ezek 36:26; I Cor 6:17; Phil 2:20; Rom 12:2). Renounce the things hidden in your heart that you are ashamed of (2 Cor 4:2). Speak a word of sacrifice to Him, and present yourself. Present yourself as the righteous, holy child of God that you are, and speak out a word to renounce these idols of the soul.
But next you must make a sacrifice.
Offer to God that you will meet him in fasting, or meet him in new prayers, or meet him in new worship, or meet Him in new submission to obedience. Let this be your sacrifice. Renounce your laziness and devotion to self, and make a sacrifice to cancel the false devotions of your soul. (I recommend fasting, and I will write about it next week.)
Then wait and watch for the fire of God to come and consume you in your sacrificed self. Let the fire refresh your new heart, and lick up the idolatry in your soul. It will be quiet. It will be untraceable at first. But the fire will come. It will consume your idols and bring the power of heaven afresh to your spirit-man.
And the glory of the Lord will fill you, His temple.
Have petty idols taken over your story? Is your heart cold, frozen over with ice? Has your spirit-man grown cold in unbelief and a lack of vision? Then you need a fire.
For our God is a consuming fire! (Heb 12:29)
– Carter