I was recently flicking through my notebook that I’ve been filling up with sermon notes, thoughts and scratchy lists of my fantasy world cricket 11, when I noticed something that I scribbled down in one of the margins. Here below is what I wrote plus minus a month ago and what follows it are a few of my additional thoughts that I added today.
Thursday 10th June 2010...
"Salvation is not just a one time legal transaction; it’s an ongoing, radical, all encompassing love affair, where I fall more and more in love with Him. It’s a romantic, extravagant chasing after my soul’s greatest desire! It’s giving up EVERYTHING for just even a moment with Him. It’s letting go of every earthly, fleshly desire and pouring out everything onto Him…This is it!
A love affair where I give every ounce of my energy, attention and want for a moment, a glance, a touch from Him! I am seeking Him! That was what I was born for. My very reason for existence...my very reason for breathing is to chase non-stop after Him."
The Lord is gathering an army and this people will be a people that strike dread into the heart of the enemy. Why? Because they are possessed by a spirit of burning, a passion for purity, a never ceasing desire for Jesus. Their lives will be utterly transparent before the Lord, and every impurity will be purged from their midst by the white hot flame of the Lord. They truly will be spotless. (Malachi.3:2-3)
God is making for himself worshippers in this hour whose lives are enflamed with holiness, who are unattached to the things of the world. They desire only their Lover!
We must move beyond acceptance of this cleansing fire. Let us even move beyond submission to the fire. Let us become the fire! Hebrews 1:7 says the Lord makes "His servants a flame of fire". This fire is synonymous with purging. It is synonymous with passion. It is burning desire!
The great revivalist John Wesley famously said,
"i set myself on fire and people came to watch me burn."In fact, our God himself is a "consuming fire", and to become one with Him is to take on His fiery nature.
As the man after God's own heart in the bible often said, "When can i go and meet with my Lover?"
And as I repeatedly sung in the key of B flat;
"NOW IS THE TIME!"
Jalaps
(Look out for a book by John Crowder called "The New Mystics" and search for sermons by Nick Davis. Alternatively, just seek your Lover with everything you have)