Fire!!

The passage of Scripture I want to use for this devotion is found in Jeremiah 1. “8 Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you," declares the LORD.
9 Then the LORD reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, "Now, I have put my words in your mouth.”
Pascal wrote on a piece of paper a brief account of his experience, folded the paper and kept it in a pocket close to his heart, apparently as a reminder of what he had felt. Those who attended him at his death found the worn, creased paper. In Pascal’s own hand it read:

“From about half-past ten at night to about half-after midnight-fire! O God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob-not the God of the philosophers and the wise. The God of Jesus Christ who can be known only in the ways of the Gospel. Security-feeling-peace-joy-tears of joy. Amen.

Were these the expressions of a fanatic, an extremist? No. Pascal’s mind was one of the greatest. But the Living God had broken through and beyond all that was human and intellectual and philosophical. The astonished Pascal could only describe in one word the visitation in his spirit: “FIRE!” ....
What we need among us today is a genuine visitation of the Holy fire of God, the Holy Spirit! So many walking and living amongst us today are living in spiritual blindness, darkness in their souls, lost in a world which hates its Creator and who do not desire the Cross. The way of the Cross is the only way to true enlightenment, forgiveness, peace, joy and love. Those who try to understand God cannot lest they come by way of the Cross of Jesus. Their misunderstanding about God leads them to deeper spiritual blindness. Everyone is born physically alive but spiritually dead! No human can understand the things of God until they are born from above, born by the Spirit’s baptism of fire. “Nothing can prevent the spiritual rejuvenation of the soul that insist’s upon having it.” Tozer
As Jeremiah received a word from the Holy God and Father, so we today need the same Word. Man is sinful, God is Holy, Mercy is given, Jesus died, Holy Spirit given and now is the time of Repentance. Why is the Church so slothful in it’s message of the Cross today? Answer, God’s way is the way of Holiness which can only come by the way of the Cross. People in the “church” has become worldly in it’s worship. The world’s church has become nothing more than a pep rally for worldlings! The True Church(believers)is about Christ and about emptying ourselves of self. It is about being filled with the Fire that Pascal referred to and which Jesus promised to all that would hunger and thirst for Righteousness. May the fire of Heaven visit us in a fresh way today. Amen