Saturday, November 22, 2014

Fire...A Great Tool Of God's Restoration


Ezekiel 36:25-28 - I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols.  I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.  And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.  You will live in the land I gave your forefathers; you will be my people, and I will be your God.

 

Ezekiel had another word for the people who had survived the wrath and punishment of God. Their lives had been through a seep valley of turmoil and hurts from the nations around them. But God wanted them to know that there was a time coming when they would be restored.  And it would be a time that exceeded any prosperous period they had ever known.

 

God was going to punish the people who he had used to teach his people who was in charge.  All the nations that had ever made fun of or mistreated the people of God would suffer destruction.  It would be complete and empty the vast land that God had once given to Abraham to raie the great nation of Israel.

 

God’s restoration is like no other feeling in the world.  He breaks us down and empties us completely of all the things that do not help us develop a complete relationship with God. Then he begins to fill us up with his love and disposition. We feel like we are going through a fire that will completely destroy us…but the coat of his love and mercy is like the seed coat of the great red wood trees of California.  They protect it from the fire that burns just enough of the protective coat off…so it can germinate into one of the tallest….grandest trees God created. 

 

God hid more wisdom in the fires of the sequoia forests than we sometimes think about.  The fire that burns that seed coat off is doing way more than just germinating a seed.  Fire in these forests also prepare the seedbed by burning the older trees and taking away weeds and unneeded brush where they need to grow.  The fire cycles the nutrients the trees need to grow.  It sets back succession in certain relatively small areas of the forest.  It provides conditions which favor wildlife.  It provides a mosaic of age classes and vegetation types. It reduces numbers of trees susceptible to attack by insects and disease and reduces fire hazards for the future.

 

I am pretty sure this process is the same in the Christian who follows James 4:7-10 …. “ Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.  Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.  Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.  My fires were the most painful things I have ever endured…but the key here is that I am still here. My seed coat was burnt beyond my human capabilities to repair….but God knew exactly what he was doing. He was preparing the ground around me to get rid of my weeds and unwanted sins.  He was making the ground around me more fertile…so I could grow as fast and as strong as he needs me to be.  He was teaching me to come to him in pray and study his Bible. He was giving mime a new heart that would be less worried and bothered by the evil world around me.

 

I know this one is longer than I usually write…so bear with me for one more thought. I know that he is not through burning my seed coat off yet. I may even need another fire to help him teach me how to rid selfishness and pride completely from my life. I admit that I still need to work on my humility.

 

Father…thank you for the fresh tears of conviction that wash over me this morning. Thank you for all the fires that you have sent…for even those they caused great pain…they have taught me much more about you than I would have learned without them.  Help me to use the space you created by taking out some of the bad in my life to let you rebuild love in its place.  Amen.

No comments:

Post a Comment