Rekindling the Enduring Fire of God's Presence

1) "And so what I want to talk about today is the fire of God in our lives. I want to talk about it because each one of us needs to never lose our fire. And instead, and I really believe this, I believe that we need to burn brighter and brighter no matter what we encounter. No matter what circumstance. You know what? I think every single one of us has been in a no matter what season. I mean, have you experienced just all sorts of crazy things? I mean, you only have to look at the news and say, whoa, like there's so much going on. But it's not just that. It's things in our own lives that we go like, wow, you know, I wasn't expecting that. I didn't think this was going to happen. But you see, the Lord wants us to have a fire that burns so bright in us that we would say no matter what. That we're going to burn brighter. And we're not only going to, you know, keep that fire burning. It's not only going to just last, but it's going to burn brighter." [55:26] (66 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2) "And so you'd go, okay, the guy had a fire at the beginning. But I love how the story picks up. You know, he was wandering around. I mean, think about it. You know, it's a no matter what season because Caleb was there wandering around with the rest of the people who failed him. They're the ones. He's like being punished for their mistakes. And he's like walking around going like, I knew we could do it. Like, here I am still here. I'm wasting my life. I don't think he was actually saying that. I think he had a vision of what was to come. But 45 years later. When all the unbelief had died off, meaning the people who didn't believe were gone, it was time to possess the land." [59:55] (47 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3) "And so there's so many more examples. But I think the walk away is we have to be careful. That. But as time goes on, we don't allow our fires to diminish. Listen, I get it. There's all sorts of reasons. There's all sorts of things we can point to and say, well, you know, look what they did to me. Look at what happened here. No, that we cannot do that. Because the scriptures don't have just examples of people who grew brighter and brighter as time went on. It has examples of people who sadly, tragically. Disastrously, had their fires completely diminish." [01:02:14] (45 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4) "You see, it's a fire that presses through the difficulties, that we would continually burn brightly, that we would never find ourselves lukewarm. You know, it's interesting because throughout the scriptures, it's always talking about running the race. It's like we're not at a slump. You know, here we go. It's like, no, get ready. Put the right shoes on. Get ready to run because that's how this race is going to be. I've always loved the following quote by the revivalist John Wesley. It's just really always meant something to me. He said it, wrote it in the 1700s, and he said, set yourself on fire for God. And people will come and they'll watch you burn." [01:09:43] (57 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5) "You see, hard seasons are never easy to go through. You know, we don't like them. We don't want them. If we could have our way, we'd all be in Hawaii. We'd be on perpetual vacation. Come back now, Jesus. But those are not the times that God, you know, it's nice. Enjoy yourself. I like a good vacation. But, that's not when the Lord moves in our life. In fact, it's the dry seasons. It's the difficult seasons that the dry, smoldering embers, the things you forgot you even had, begin to erupt into a flame. You see it in the story of Jacob when he wrestled with the angel. He was not in a good place. But he said, you know what? I'm so not in a good place, I'm not gonna let you go, Jesus, until you bless me, until you change me, until you change my name, until you change who I am. I'm not gonna let you go." [01:12:08] (60 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6) "You see, God is still in this business of baptizing. That word baptize just means to immerse. He wants to immerse us in the Holy Spirit and he wants to immerse us in the fire of God, that passion for his kingdom. And so just as, you know, in our rest of our time, what I want to do is I want to look at this fire because I believe that God wants us to understand. And I want to begin by looking at Moses and his encounter with the fire at the burning bush. Let me quickly read this. Exodus 3, verse 1. Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law. Let me tell you, when we're busy about the father's business, God begins to move. The priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the back of the desert and he came to Horeb, the mountain of God." [01:21:14] (47 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


7) "You see, the Lord wants to give us a fire in our lives that causes us to press in and to announce to him, I'm here, Lord. What do you want me to do? I'm here. I'm at your disposal. And we see that the time to do, Moses understood it was now. I will now turn aside. You see, everywhere in scripture, you see the necessity of a fire burning. And actually, a great example is in Moses' tabernacle because he leaves that burning bush experience to go on to lead Israel through the wilderness. And one of the things that he had to do was build this tabernacle, this portable tabernacle. And every time God spoke to him about the tabernacle, he said, Make sure you're doing this according to the pattern that I'm giving you. And it's even repeated twice in the New Testament." [01:24:56] (53 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


8) "But the golden candlestick was always lit too. The fire at the top of the branches of the golden candlestick never went out. They needed to make sure it always burned brightly. And the candlestick speaks of the word of God. That we need to have a fire within us about the word. It's about prayer. It's about worship. It's about all of these things. But you know what? Don't forget that wherever, when God moved, you know, there was a cloud by day and a fire by night that would lead the children of Israel. Whenever God said, okay, you're moving on, because this is what he said, he's saying today, you're moving on. What did they have to do? They had to pack up Moses's tabernacle. It was a big tent, all the furniture, and off it went with them. Why? Because we have to carry the fire with us." [01:28:30] (56 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


9) "And no matter what the level of your fire is this morning, I believe every single one of us can have more. It's just like the days of creation. Day one, let there be light. That's great. Let there be light. But we need day four where God says, let there be more light. Let me give you the sun and the moon and the stars. You see, God, whatever you have walked in, God wants to give you more. He wants more. He wants your life in the Word to be deeper. He wants your life in prayer to go further. He wants even your giftings to begin to manifest in such a way that the earth is going to be touched. How are we going to get to be like Peter whose shadow healed people if we're too afraid of what people are thinking about us? No, he's saying, let there be a fire that comes upon us." [01:35:32] (56 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)