Burning in My Soul

 We have started singing this Matt Maher song at my church. Let it be a cry of our hearts for 2015 and beyond!

Smokin' Hot!

"May you be comforted by the burning protective strength of your Father’s strong and stormy love.

May you be captivated by the focused heat and glow of your Bridegroom’s jealous passion.

May you recline at peace and with veiled face bow.

May you be thrilled and terrified at the rampaging, irresistible zeal of this consuming fire who has pledged Himself to do you good all the days of your life and who will not hold back even if the good seems bad, and stings and burns and blisters your skin.

May your heart thrill at the awesome God who held nothing back that He might hold you close, who poured on His Son what He never deserved that you might receive forever what you would not have desired, but were created for.

Then may your own heart become an altar aflame with fiery love and exclusive zeal to bring Him glory and expand His praise among all peoples and nations—among your friends and enemies too."

  - Timothy Stoner,  The God Who Smokes: Scandalous Meditations on Faith

Hat Tip: Trevin Wax at Kingdom People

The Mighty Fire of the Gospel

"The chief and fundamental thing in the Gospel is this, that before you take Christ as your example, you recognize and accept Him as God's gift to you; so that when you see or hear Him in any of His work of suffering, you do not doubt but believe that He, Christ Himself, with such work or suffering of His, is most truly your very own, whereon you may rely as confidently as if you had done that work. . . . See, this is to understand aright the Gospel, that is, the infinite grace of God. . . . This is the mighty fire of God's love toward us whereby He makes the conscience confident, joyful, and content."

                   - Martin Luther

From:  Strawberry-Rhubarb Theology: The Mighty Fire of God's Love

Let Not the Fire Go Out

"...thinking is dangerous and indispensable.  Without a profound work of grace in the heart, knowledge - the fruit of thinking - puffs. up.  But with that grace, thinking opens the door of humble knowledge.  And that knowledge is the fuel of the fire of love for God and man.  If we turn away from serious thinking in our pursuit of God, that fire will eventually go out."


   - John Piper, Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God, pages 164-165.

Let the Word Come

"Let the Word of God come; let it enter the church; let it become a consuming fire, that it may burn the hay and stubble, and consume whatever is worldly; there is heavy lead of iniquity in many; let it be molten by divine fire; let the gold and silver vessels be made better, in order that understanding and speech, refined by the heat of suffering, may begin to be more precious."

St Ambrose of Milan, (On Psalm 118, Sermon 13,)