The Fire of His Love

By: Nancy Missler; ©2001

Why does God allow us to suffer? Are there any benefits to us? Nancy Missler explains.

Introduction

The dark night can be likened to God “salting us with fire.” In the Bible, God is often spoken of as an all-consuming fire. Listen to Deuteronomy 4:24: “for the Lord thy God is a consuming fire.”

This is why our night seasons can sometimes be referred to as “a baptism of fire.” It’s God’s way of making us “experientially” one with Himself. The fire is God’s loving way of purifying, refining and cleansing away the dross in our souls. He is a consuming fire (a living Flame) that “in love” burns to ashes anything that is contrary to His will. At no other time does God express His Love more for us than when He allows these night seasons into our lives. He loves us so much He takes the risk that we might misunderstand Him and walk away.

We could call this fire the fire of His Love. His fire of Love does two things at the same time: it not only consumes by burning, it also transforms whatever it touches into itself. In other words, the Lord’s fire of Love consumes all that is necessary in order to consummate (or perfect) that which is left.

When Jesus says in Mark 9:49 that “everyone will be salted with fire,” He means that at one time or another, all of us who want more of Him will have our souls purified by His fire of Love. Just as the priests of Solomon’s temple offered their “salted” sacrifices on the Brazen Altar, so too we must offer our bodies as living “salted” sacrifices.

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” (Romans 12:1)

Salt (halas) was to be offered with every sacrifice as a symbol of the holiness of Christ, and also as a token of the reconciliation of God and man by Christ’s death on the cross. It stood for a believer’s character and condition and was an emblem of their fidelity and friendship.

The “baptism of fire” means staying on that Brazen Altar until everything that is “unholy” is burned up and consumed. Only then will we be allowed to enter into the Holy Place where God dwells and experientially fellowship with Him.

What so often happens, however, is that we jump up on the Brazen Altar and offer ourselves as a “living sacrifice,” but when God turns up the fire, we quickly jump off. The dark night is a time when God puts us on that altar, and leaves us there. Only then will that fire have consumed all that is necessary in order to transform that which is left into itself!

As 1 John 4:17 says, “…as He is, so are we [to be] in this world.”

It’s not the devil hassling us or trying to tear us down through these night seasons (even though he’s always there roaring around to find some “hole”). It’s God Himself burning up everything in us that is not of Him and replacing it with something far greater: His own Self.

Thus, the fire of God’s Love not only purifies, cleanses and refines our soul, it also, at the same time, enlightens our spirit. In other words, fire produces heat and light at the same time! Just as Acts 2:3 talks about fire descending as “cloven tongues” and resting upon the people, God’s fire does not afflict us, but rather enlightens and enlarges us. God’s ultimate purpose for His fire of Love is not to destroy us, but to consummate (perfect and complete) us in glory.

Peter exhorts us in 1 Peter 1:7-9: “That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ, Whom, having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, receiving [as] the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.”

Through the baptism of fire, God desires to consume everything in our soul that is not of Him. By doing so, He will make us experientially “one” with Himself and we will finally intimately know His presence. This sanctification and perfection of our souls only occurs when our acts and our ways have been laid at the foot of the cross and burned by His Love.

Results of The Dark Night

In future articles we will talk about the blessings and the benefits that God desires for us as a result of our night seasons. However, I believe it would be helpful to give a brief summary of some of those incredible blessings right now. If we can keep God’s goal and purposes in mind, it will make it much easier to get through the darkness.

• Through our night seasons, God desires for us to:
• Be conformed into His image and, thus, experience the abundant Life.
• Experience His presence and, thus, the fulness of Christ.
• Experience true faith and dependence upon Him.
• Experience His unconditional Love and resurrection Power.
• Experience intimate knowledge of Him, i.e., seeing Him in all things.
• Experience the joy of the Lord.
• Experience the rest and contentment of God.
• Experience the beauty of His holiness.
• Become true worshipers of God (worshiping Him in the spirit).
• Become true lovers of God.
• Become fruitful and able to genuinely comfort others.
• Be “overcomers.”
• Experience the peace that passes all understanding. (Philippians 4:7)

G. D. Watson, a Wesleyan Methodist minister wrote a piece in the 1800s that has blessed many followers of Christ in their “dark nights.” It’s called “Others May, You Cannot”:

If God has called you to be really like Jesus, He will draw you to a life of crucifixion and humility, and put upon you such demands of obedience that you will not be able to follow other people, or measure yourself by other Christians, and in many ways, He will seem to let other good people do things which He will not let you do.

Other Christians and ministers who seem very religious and useful may push themselves, pull wires, and work schemes to carry out their plans, but you cannot do it; and if you attempt it, you will meet with such failure and rebuke from the Lord as to make you sorely penitent.

Others may boast of themselves, of their work, of their success, of their writings, but the Holy Spirit will not allow you to do any such thing, and if you begin it, He will lead you into some deep mortification that will make you despise yourself and all your good works.

Others may be allowed to succeed in making money, or may have a legacy left to them, but it is likely God will keep you poor, because He wants you to have something far better than gold, namely, a helpless dependence on Him, that He may have the privilege of supplying your needs day by day out of an unseen treasury.

The Lord may let others be honored and put forward, and keep you hidden in obscurity, because He wants you to produce some choice, fragrant fruit for His coming glory, which can only be produced in the shade. He may let others do a work for Him and get the credit for it, but He will make you work and toil on without knowing how much you are doing, and then to make your work still more precious, He may let others get the credit for the work which you have done, and thus make your reward ten times greater when Jesus comes.

The Holy Spirit will put a strict watch over you, with a jealous love, and will rebuke you for little words and feelings, or for wasting your time, which other Christians never seem distressed over. So make up your mind that God is an infinite sovereign and has a right to do as He pleases with His own.

He may not explain to you a thousand things which puzzle your reason in His dealings with you. But if you absolutely sell yourself to be His…slave, He will wrap you up in a jealous love, and bestow upon you many blessings which come only to those who are in the inner circle.

Settle it forever, then, that you are to deal directly with the Holy Spirit and that He is to have the privilege of tying your tongue, or chaining your hand, or closing your eyes, in ways that He does not seem to use with others. Now when you are so possessed with the living God that you are, in your secret heart, pleased and delighted over this peculiar, personal, private, jealous guardianship and management of the Holy Spirit over your life, you will have found the vestibule (entrance) to heaven.