A Consuming Fire

Since we are receiving a Kingdom that is unshakable, let us be thankful and please God by worshiping Him with holy fear and awe. For our God is a consuming fire. Hebrews 12:28-29 (NLT)

My birthday is this month and I am fully cognizant of the sobering fact that there is more time behind me than in front of me. If the pages on the calendar didn’t enumerate the years, my body would (and does!).  I feel them in my joints and I have a gnawing awareness of the absence of the spring in my step I once had. No longer can I jump when Van Halen says so. I might as well not, thank you very much. Yes, I can still get down on the floor with my grandchildren but they better look away when I get up.  Some things can’t be unseen and I won’t be the only one breathing hard and crying.

It’s true, birthdays, especially when you’ve had decades of them, cause you to reflect on your life. They also cause you to give pause to what may lie ahead. I can get so caught up in this giving pause thing that I literally pause any other thoughts and spiral down into a black hole of fear and dread.

But what am I afraid of with Christ as my savior? Well, I’ll tell ya! I’m afraid of suffering.  I’m afraid of genetics. I’m afraid of the actual process of dying. I’m afraid of loneliness.  I’m afraid of the progression of my Multiple Sclerosis. And the list goes on.

Hebrews 12:28 says, "Since we are receiving a Kingdom that is unshakable, let us be thankful and please God by worshiping Him with holy fear and awe.”

If I’m receiving a kingdom that is unshakable—NOTHING will change or make this kingdom less than what God has ordained, nor will anything ever overcome it—then why do I have fear about aging and eventually dying? Because I don’t focus on the promises of what is to be.  I focus on things I can see and feel, like the suffering of now. I don't focus on the object of my faith, which is God and His promises.

Last week we talked about how gratitude doesn’t change our circumstances, it changes our focus. Hebrews 12:28 is a perfect example of why our gratitude isn’t just virtue signaling or us playing the martyr.  Our genuine gratitude is predicated on the truth of who God is (where our focus should be) and what is to come for us. These truths exist regardless of what is happening in our lives now or what will happen in the future.

The author of Hebrews drives home his point of why we should be grateful by driving home the message of who God is—a consuming fire! (vs 29) Simply put, the holiness of God inherently consumes (like a fire) that and those opposed to Him because His holiness is greater than anything in the physical world and anything in the spiritual world. This is who is promising us the unshakable kingdom! His kingdom is unshakable because He is unshakable. How can we not be grateful for this?!

My gratitude to God won’t stop me from aging or dying, but it will stop me from being afraid of those things, or at least mitigate their power over me, because it will direct my thoughts to the One who is greater than my fears. God is not an impersonal, uninvolved deity.  He is a consuming fire with a consuming passion for you and me. 

My dear friend, are you grateful for that?