Consuming Fire – Burning the Sacrifice

There’s a fire a-burnin’, falling from the sky
Awesome tongues of fire
Consuming you and I
Can you feel it burnin’
Burn the sacrifice
Well let it burn over me
Oh, sweet fire, come and burn over me

As these words from a contemporary Christian song lit up the screen, my heart sought God to make this true for me. It was at this time that God reminded me of what He taught me several months ago.

As in the days of the old covenant, when men of God lifted up their offering on the altar and sought God’s honour and glory, God’s holy fire would consume the offering thereby affirming that the offering was pleasing and acceptable in His sight. The consuming fire also made the presence of God more evident. In much the same way, in the new covenant, God has made His expectation plain when He tells us that we need to present our bodies as a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is our true and proper worship (Rom. 12:1).

When we look closely at the words in the verse, it doesn’t take long to recognise that if our body is to be a living sacrifice to God, then this offering that we place on the altar of worship must of necessity be holy and pleasing to God. These were similar requirements expected from sacrifices in the temple.

It is in a build-up to Romans 12:1 that the Apostle Paul exhorts us not to let sin reign in our mortal bodies and not present our members as instruments of unrighteousness but to present ourselves to God as those alive from the dead and our members as instruments of righteousness to God (Rom. 6:13). It is these very members—our tongue, our mind, our eyes and ears, yes, every member of our body—that we must offer to God as a living sacrifice, made holy by the blood of Jesus.

When such an offering is placed on the altar before God, will not God’s consuming fire lick up the offering as He did at the time when Solomon inaugurated the temple (2Chr. 7:1) or when Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel (1Kin. 18:38)? And when His fire consumes the offering, will not His presence be evident in our body, which is the temple of the Holy Spirit, as it did in both the events above (2Chr. 7:3; 1Kin. 18:39)? God is the same yesterday, today and forever. He never changes. His word never changes. In Christ Jesus, we have an amazing privilege to live in the fullness of the gospel. Must we settle for less?

I have repeatedly been publishing over the past several years now, this all-important need to live righteous and holy in all that we say and do. In one article I wrote that since Christ Jesus died to make us righteous and has set us apart as a new creation for God, is it not a life of righteousness that is expected from us on a sustained basis? Is this not the reason why God chose us in Christ Jesus, before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4)? 

Will not God who is faithful keep us from stumbling (Jude 24) and confirm us to the end blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ (1Cor. 1:8, 9)? When the author of the letter to the Hebrews wrote that we ought to draw near to the throne of God’s gracious favour with confidence and without fear that we may find mercy and grace to help in time of need (Heb. 4:16) he had just finished exhorting us that we must be careful not to repeat the error of the children of Israel in the wilderness who lost out on God’s rest because of two factors—unbelief (Heb. 3:19) and disobedience (Heb. 4:6). When we call on His name and seek His face our God is our ever-present help who strengthens us with what Paul refers to as the same power that raised Jesus from the dead (Rom. 8:11; Eph. 1:19, 20 and Php. 3:10).

So when I sang the words that flashed on the screen this morning, I asked God, my Helper—please help me be that sacrifice, holy and pleasing in your sight; for I eagerly desire that not just once, but daily, Thou will consume with Thy holy fire what I place on the altar. 

God is faithful. It is His good pleasure to give to us the very thing that Christ Jesus has made possible for us to enjoy—His fullness, His presence, His fellowship and the knowledge of Him who fills all in all.