STOKING THE FIRE

STOKING THE FIRE

                One of my great memories as a youngster was when our family would go to visit Grandma and Grandpa Bauer on their dairy farm. They ran one of those wonderful family farms of yesteryear. The buildings were all white and the fences too. The barn was one of those big old hip roofed barns with a large haymow for a year’s supply of hay and a silo full of corn silage for the winter.

                The farm sat on 80 acres and there were apple trees and grape vines and a huge vegetable garden and chickens for the eggs and about 80 milking cows mostly Holstein. The farm was very picturesque and especially so because it was located on a 4 mile by 8 mile island in the middle of the Columbia River which flows between the states of Washington and Oregon.

                One could cross over the bridge to get to the Island from Cathlamet Washington, or to cross over to Oregon one had to take the ferry. Puget Island had mainly two kinds of residents. There were many of these colorful family farms and then there were the Scandinavian fishermen who moored their fishing boats in the many canals that crisscrossed the island.

                We kids had more fun on that farm than a person deserves, building forts out of hay bales, trying to ride the cows, using Grandpa’s cedar fence posts to build a raft and to Tom Sawyer it up and down the slew that ran along the edge of the farm. Grandpa even let us drive his old Ford tractor out to spread a little “sunshine” on the fields when the pile got too high. Then twice a week a big tanker truck from the Mayflower Dairy would come and haul away the milk that was kept refrigerated in a large stainless steel tank in the milk house.

                The house was an old two story house with a basement where Grandma did her laundry in an old washing machine with a wringer to squeeze the water out of the clothes and to deposit them into the big metal tub of rinse water. The refrigerator up in the kitchen was an old GE with the motor on top and the counter was always full of home baked apple and blackberry pies.

                Grandma was a German cook and so we had many traditional dishes including strawberry Glees, and Kraut brioche, (We called it Kraut Cogen) and our favorite was the home made noodles which she served topped with hot buttered bread crumbs. Have you ever had homemade pasta? And grandma’s sewing machine was one of those old Singer machines that ran by foot power and everything was wonderful and dreamy at grandma and grandpa’s farm.

                Like I said, grandma shared half of the basement with grandpa. I remember a cobalt blue bottle of Mrs. Stewart’s bluing sitting on the small window pane, but in the other half of the basement was the heating stove and beyond that a large pile of presto logs with which the house was kept warm.

                Every evening grandpa would add logs for the night and every morning he would stoke the fire and add more logs using the hot coals from the day before to revive the fire.

                Well, I took a walk down memory lane didn’t I? And all of it to make a point.

                One of the ladies on our worship team at church was requesting prayer for a lady she has been witnessing to. It seems that the lady has no end of trouble and heartache in her life, most of which could be solved if she would come to the Lord and live for Him.

                So when Naomi suggested that she come to church, the lady responded saying: “Oh I was saved when I was a youth. And immediately when Naomi told us that, my mind was suddenly back on grandma’s and grandpa’s farm, the smell of the presto logs and Grandpa stoking the fire in the predawn hours as he headed out to milk the cows. Being a morning person from my youth, I would hear grandpa heading out and I would get up and follow him out to the barn to help feed the cows at 4 AM.

                What was that all about? Well, it was about grandpa stoking the fire in the early morning hours, causing the embers of yesterday’s fire to flare up and to ignite the new presto logs for the day. And it wasn’t only morning and evening that the fire was stoked, because Grandma used to go down during the day and add more wood to the fire as well.

                It is not enough to “Get Saved” once upon a time. Once a fire is lit then one has to keep it going by feeding it, stirring it up, making sure that it gets plenty of air and fuel.

                Everything in life contains a spiritual lesson of one kind or another and we often miss the message because we get too religious. We set our faith up on a shelf where it literally starves to death waiting for more fuel. We are so spiritually impractical that we forget that untended fires go out.

                Jesus came to baptize us with the Holy Spirit and fire. Some people get the fire when they are saved while some only get a list of doctrines. Some people are spiritually cold from the beginning while others are spiritually on fire, but in either case the end result will be the same if they don’t keep stoking the fire. Like Manna, yesterday’s fire is gone and if we want to keep warm today we have to stoke the fire. We have to stir up the coals that remain and add fuel to them so that they flare up and get hot again.

                In Ephesians chapter 4 after talking about the fivefold ministry of the church that is to bring us into the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ, Paul talks about speaking the truth in love so that we grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ. But then Paul goes on to describe some who fall away and live like the Gentiles do. They become darkened in their understanding because they are excluded from the life of God. He goes on to say that we must be renewed in the spirit of our mind, putting on the new self which is in the likeness of God. Eph. 4:23

                Then Paul ends the chapter by saying: “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” Eph. 4:30. You see, that seal of the Holy Spirit is not like the seals on one of grandma’s old canning jars. Those she would seal and then put on a shelf until it was needed for food in the winter. But the seal of the Holy Spirit is a living and active seal. If we receive this seal and then set it on a shelf and let it starve and or burn out, this grieves the Holy Spirit who has sealed us for the day of redemption.

                But like I said, this seal is a living seal because we are all, as living stones, being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” 1Peter 2:5.

                Jesus came to baptize us with the Holy Spirit and fire and He put us together as living coals to keep each other hot; for indeed if you pull a coal out of the fire alone it will quickly lose heat and die out.

                Paul told Timothy saying: “And for this reason I remind you to kindle afresh (To stir up) the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands.” 1 Tim. 1”6

                Paul was reminding Timothy to stoke the fire that had been placed in him by the Holy Spirit with the laying on of Paul’s hands. Paul got the fire going, but Timothy needed to stir up the gift, to stoke the fire of the Holy Spirit that had been placed within him.

                Some people, if they go to church at all, come as cold dead coals hoping to be ignited again. They have gone a whole week without stoking the fire and then they wonder why the devil is winning in their lives more than Jesus is winning. It is not Jesus’ fault. Our relationship with Him is a dynamic and living relationship. We need vigorous worship and Spirit filled preaching and the fellowship of the saints to keep the fire burning hot… and if we will keep that fire hot all week, then we will come to church as hot coals that will contribute to the fire.

                Few people have ever experienced what it is like when there is a gathering of hot coals. Many Christians come to church expecting nothing and they leave having received nothing.

                We can’t light a fire without the Holy Spirit and we can’t leave the Holy Spirit setting on one religious shelf or another. He is the very life of our lives. He is the vital connection… the life-giving flow that, once received in full, will flow out of our innermost being like rivers of living water. And it was Jesus Himself who said:

                “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.’ “But this He spoke of the Spirit whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” John 7:38, 39

                Pope Francis recently said that a person cannot have a personal relationship with Jesus. It must be mediated through the Catholic Church and received through the institutional liturgy, the Eucharist, through saying the Rosary and obeying the rules of the church. Herein we see the epitome of false religion. Man takes the place of God and institutes a tradition with no fire in it. He changes times and laws and then pretends to create God. But this is the very definition of antichrist and we came out of that dead and despotic religion to walk with the Lord, to be filled with His Spirit and to become living stones in His living house.

                So, remember to stoke the fire today. Ignite the passion of love for God and for each other. Don’t allow anything or anyone to stand between you and God as we are connected to Him by His Holy Spirit. And each of us as living stones is being built together into a dwelling place for the Lord.

                As a watchman I feel a very strong sense of fellowship and brotherhood with all other watchmen and prophets in the world today. In this fellowship it is not necessary for us to interpret the prophecies in the exact same way. We don’t need to share the same exact views, but we DO need to share the same Spirit. And as such there is much that we can all learn from each other.

                Believe me, there are some who do not share the same Spirit. They are the ones that spend their energies shooting at everyone they disagree with, or making wild claims (Sort of like Pope Francis) that theirs is the only way.

                There is only one way and one truth and one life and that is found in Jesus Christ Himself. For those who are at war with others, the Word of God is seen as ammunition. But for those who are led by the Spirit of Christ, the Word paints a picture of Christ and it transforms us into that picture as we abide in Him.

                For those who are doctrine oriented, doctrine is everything, but for those who are Christ centered, Jesus Christ is everything and our fellowship is with Him and we share in His life through His Holy Spirit and His truth. If we are centered in Christ, then we are not overly upset by slight variances in doctrinal understanding. But we are very upset when we see people and whole denominations abandoning Scripture altogether. They are, in fact, beating a path to the worship of the antichrist.

                If you are beginning to feel cold, then it is time to stoke the fire… to find fellowship with Jesus and with each other through His Holy Spirit.

                There are two ways to approach Scripture:

                The wrong way is to create a set of doctrines and then amass a bunch of Bible texts to prove what you believe. This way inevitably leads to falsehood, because in proving a certain point of view one has to leave out all of the Bible texts that don’t fit their beliefs. This was the leaven of the Pharisees, who used the Scriptures to support their traditions but ended up at odds with the very Messiah they were looking for.

                The right approach to the Bible is to take it at face value… believe that it is forming a picture of Christ and that we are being transformed by the renewing of our minds. Take all of Scripture and not just the texts that support your view. Remember what Jesus said:

                “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these that bear witness of Me and you are unwilling to come to Me that you may have life.” John 5:39

                So if you will begin to see Jesus in the Word and you find His life in it, as it is ignited by the Holy Spirit, then this way of fellowship with each other and with the Lord, will stoke the fires of your life.