There are six aspects which need to he considered concerning our initiative in the fire.
In the first step, you submit to the fire.
Paul wrote in Romans 12:1: I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God… You come, saying, “Here I am, Lord; apply the fire.” We will not die; but neither will we remain only half alive like we may be now. When we submit ourselves to the fire, the dross will be burned out, and this conflict of nature will be resolved by the Lord’s life coming forth and prevailing in us.
Our submission to the basic teaching of the Lordship of Jesus Christ initiates this experience of fire. This first step is taken at our initiative. When we become submissive to the will of the Lord, a fire starts in our life. A fire starts to burn wherever a living Word is preached. The living Word shakes a church. The moment God brings a revelation to our heart of His divine order and we begin to submit our life to it, we start going into the fire.
The fire changes people. For this reason we must refuse to see anyone as he was a month ago, six months ago, or six years ago. We cannot see one another after the flesh any longer because God is doing such an amazing thing within us. Sometimes the illusion stays awhile.
Before the Word has been working in our life very long, people look at you and say, “Oh, I know that old rat. I’ve known him a long time.” They judge by the appearance, not perceiving the change that God is working inside of us. There is hardly any of the old you left at all!
The second step of initiative is an aggressive appropriation of the fire. There must be a compulsion in our spirit—call it a yearning, a hunger. Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. Matthew 5:6.
There must be an aggressive appropriation of the fire. We can back away from it, constantly refuse it, and work around it; we can choose a situation in which we run away from this kind of dealing. And to a great degree, God lets us position ourselves at various levels of His dealing. Those who are on the outskirts of the Lord’s camp are not bothered much by problems or requirements that come up within the Body.
But those of the inner camp attend the tabernacle where the glory is, and that is also where the fire is. In the days of future testing, it will be as it was with Israel: the wrath of God will fall on those on the outskirts of the camp, because they have not submitted to the righteousness of God. This aggressive appropriation of fire seems to be a very necessary move on our part.
Numbers 11: 1 So the fire of the LORD burned among them, and consumed some in the outskirts of the camp. God’s dealing with His people was different in the OLD COVENANT. We have to understand seed lines. The seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. God had to perverse the seed line of the woman from which Jesus would come. God is love and everything He does is motivate by love.
The word for wrath in the Hebrew is ap it means properly the nose or nostril; the rapid breathing in passion. The word for wrath is in the Greek is orgē it means desire, it is burning passion against anything that stops God’s love from being manifested. The root of the word is oregō it means to stretch oneself, reach out after (long for):- covet after, desire.
We have to look at the root of the word, because most of the translations of the Bible, and the dictionaries of the bible are bias. There interpretations are based on their belief system which do not reflect the true nature of God.
In the New Covenant God does not do a lot of things Sovereignly, He works through His many member body, and entrusts the ministry of judgement to His elect, those in whom His love has been perfected.
The third point concerning our initiative with the fire is the need for a faith to become. We have to believe that we are going to become. All prayers should have that quality of appropriation which believes to become something, which believes for the will of the Lord to be done.
We cannot listen to the promises of the Lord that are being preached to us and then pray, “Lord, if it be Thy will…” He is trying to tell us that it is His will! Are we saying to the Lord, “If it be Thy will, let the fire come”? We know very well that it is the will of God.
Do we want God to refine us? He will. Do not just submit to it; aggressively appropriate it. Believe to become what He wants you to be.
Do we really believe to become a manifested son of God? Do we really believe that we are going to walk in perfection in this generation? Do we believe that we are going to be a refined vessel for the Lord to use? This is where either faith or unbelief enters in. We may say that we believe in a walk with God, but do we believe in the destination of that walk for our own life? Do we accept it? We must have faith to become the will of God.
The fourth step in our initiative is expressed in Hosea 10:12b: Break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord until He comes to rain righteousness on you. If we want God to do something for us, there is an initial preparation necessary on our part, or else all that God says and all that He would do will have no effect on us. We must get the ground ready: break up the clods, plow it, and harrow it; otherwise when the Lord plants the seed of His Word in our heart and waters it, it will not produce any fruit.
This hundredfold ministry with nothing choking it out, a hundredfold yield returned to the Word of God can come only when the clods have been broken up and the soil has been prepared and made ready for the seed to be planted and watered by the Lord, and for the sun to shine upon it.
If the fallow ground is not prepared properly, that seed springing up will soon die. If we want to conquer Canaan, we first come to Gilgal for the circumcision of heart. We are not prepared to go in and really conquer until the Lord has dealt with our heart and brought this deep and necessary preparation. Break up that fallow ground. Get ready for the Lord to move!
This is what made the baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire described in Acts 2 such a fantastic experience. Notice in the first chapter of Acts that the believers were continually in prayer. Although they tarried in Jerusalem to receive the Holy Spirit, today we can receive the Holy Spirit by faith; no tarrying is required. But the extent to which the Holy Spirit is to operate powerfully in our life may depend greatly on how we have broken up the fallow ground before the Spirit took over.
In the past, many people who tarried and emptied their hearts, wanting to be completely open before the Lord, had a wonderful experience. On one hand, too much introspection—without the appropriation of faith that believed to be filled—resulted in many people waiting longer than they should have. On the other hand, those who came unprepared spoke a few words in tongues, but there was no great experience of the Holy Spirit in their lives because there had not been the necessary preparation. We have to prepare for that which the Lord would bring forth.
The fifth step involves our association with God and with others which will refine us. Practicing the presence of the Lord is probably one of the greatest benefits, because He is a consuming fire. The more we enter in to be close to the Lord, to associate with Him, the more the fire happens. People who walk together in the Spirit are soon all going through the same thing. Paul wrote to one church, “Oh, I rejoice that you have the same conflict which you have seen in me” (Philippians 1:30). In other words, “Welcome aboard! We are all in the battle together. The same conflict that you saw working in me is working in you.” When we are around one another, we partake of the same warfare and the same dealings of the Lord.
The sixth key is worship. Perhaps we have never considered worship in this light, but when we come to worship the Lord, it is as though we throw a match on a pile of wood. We start the fire. In His dealings, God will show us what He wants; then we will have to drag it in, tie it to the horns of the altar, and say, “Now I’ve initiated it.”
In our worship we open our hearts and drag everything in our innermost being right into the presence of the Lord so that He can touch it with His fire. The fire is not ours; the fire is the Lord’s. It is His fire that burns, but we initiate the positioning of ourselves so that it can happen. We do not make the fire happen in the sense that we start it and finish it, but we initiate it; we bring everything under the focus of God’s dealings, so that God will lay the fire to it.
How many times have we read in the Old Testament about the fire coming down and burning up the sacrifice? They made the altar and brought the sacrifices. After they had made the full preparation for the Lord to be glorified, they said, “Now Lord, where is the fire? Lord, you send the fire.” And if they had pleased the Lord in their sacrifice, the fire would come.
The Lord never receives any sincere offering from us that He does not break or burn. He either breaks it, or He burns it. The alabaster box was broken. When five loaves and two fishes were laid in His hands, He blessed them and then He started breaking them. The little boy’s mouth was probably watering as he saw his barley cakes and fishes being distributed to the people. He may have sat there hungry while his gift was being broken, blessed, and distributed. It will be that way with us as we come and give the Lord whatever He requires of us. The most beautiful little lamb, the one without any blemish, was burned with fire! That is the way the Lord wants it.
What will happen when we have nothing left but ashes? That is answered in Isaiah 61:3: He will give us beauty for ashes. He takes away the self-reliance, that assertiveness, that pride, all of the grooming of the old flesh. Then we stand before the Lord crying, “O Lord, what a mess I am—a person of unclean lips.” He will solve that by putting a little fire on our tongue to remove the uncleanness, and then we will be able to prophesy until nations fall and the Kingdom arises.
That is the way it will be: we submit in order for the Lord to deal with our heart. The Lord did not choose us because we were so beautiful, so diplomatic, or had such an outgoing personality and great qualities of leadership. He did not choose us for our money either. Why did He choose us? What we have to give Him may not be much, but put it on the altar and let the Lord burn it up. When He is through, we will see that we have been tried as gold in the fire. And we will say like Job, “When He has tried me, I shall come forth as pure gold.”