Out of the Furnace…
‘…I have decided, to follow Jesus…’
Hello fellow captives!
I say “fellow captives” because as I write this morning I am reminded of a picture that Paul paints for believers in 2 Corinthians 2:14-17 – that of captives being led in the Roman “Triumphal Procession.” We, now, are paraded around by Christ Himself as His living plunder. He has stolen us back from the captivity of our flesh, which had kept us from His presence, and He has ushered us back into His courts – captives, bound in the cuffs of love for a most loving King.
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I want to give, what I believe is, a more concise and cumulative articulation of the workings of God during my summer. I wanted to write with a sensitive prose, in order that those who haven’t heard a word about this trip might be able to better comprehend exactly what has transpired. I don’t believe that this story is stirring in and of itself… Yet there is a motto that precedes even my deepest rooted pride, speaking in ineffable truth – so that whether I myself live as if I believed it or not, it yet remains as true. That motto is a watchword which has been whispered by great men over the ages, both in dark and lonely corners and in green pastures. And if I may, I would like to recite that motto in meekness… letting its simple words sound throughout my life, if only herein I might surrender to the power of its consequence, speaking it to myself under my breath every minute; saying, “In myself, nothing. In God everything.”
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This summer I walked through the howling waste of what I can’t describe in any other way but with the word “furnace.” If God is The “All Consuming Fire,” then I felt the heat of His glory as He led me through the valley these past months. But He is a good God – tender to those who cry out for Him… those who turn their faces to the Son lifted up. And here I stand, having fixed my eyes on the Son for deliverance from the darkness of my flesh and the shame of my failures. And therein I hear the tender voice of God: “Come to me, and I will give you rest.”
This summer I followed the urging of the Holy Spirit to lead a team of 7 men into Mongolia’s nomadic countryside and least visited province to share the Gospel with those who will never have otherwise heard it. I had no idea what awaited me… what awaited us. After one week of in-country preparation, we set out for a wide-mouthed valley in search of the “forgotten” ones. 2 Horses, 7 Backpacks, 25 days, and 1 Holy Spirit. For a little over three weeks we experienced the throws of Nomadic Life. Drawn for me was the picture of faith that Abraham must have had when he responded to God’s call simply to pick up all that he owned and go to the land which God would show him. It was a faith-journey that took Him straight into the unknown. As for me, a faith-walk straight into the heart of God. And this walk, is seldom seen a sacrifice by those who walk it. It is the walk of the impoverished who, mocked by the world for their preference of poverty, tilts their fiery eyes heavenward and reminded themselves, “Oh yes, there my riches lie.”
Intense river crossings, beating wind, broken tents, and broken expectations can’t compare to the breaking that God has done in my heart. Confronted with my pride, anger, and selfishness I have been put low before God. Humiliated in myself I sink low into the arms of the One who calls me “Beloved.” Though not of my own doing, my heart has been submitted into a more contrite posture before God. My only sorrow is that it took so much force from God to lead me to that place. But here I stand, on the solid ground of Calvary, encouraged by Christ to rise from my humiliation and see His hands and side.
Intense river crossings, beating wind, broken tents, and broken expectations can’t compare to the breaking that God has done in my heart. Confronted with my pride, anger, and selfishness I have been put low before God. Humiliated in myself I sink low into the arms of the One who calls me “Beloved.” Though not of my own doing, my heart has been submitted into a more contrite posture before God. My only sorrow is that it took so much force from God to lead me to that place. But here I stand, on the solid ground of Calvary, encouraged by Christ to rise from my humiliation and see His hands and side.
For 25 days we searched for Nomadic families. Once found, we lived on their land for several days, helping them morning, noon, and night with chores – probing every circumstance in search of a chance to share the Gospel, whether by word or deed. We milked their goats every morning, sheared sheep every day, and made constant trips in search for firewood and water. We castrated lambs, roped stallions, fought to tie down baby camels, and herded yaks… all in simple love for Jesus. Sickness, sores, blisters, bruises, tiredness, snow, hail, rain, and blaring sun taught us to be content with the comfort of Jesus, and to be laid out as living sacrifices for His use and glory. Our boots will never be the same, and neither will our attitudes.
70 heard the Gospel. 60 heard the name of Jesus for the first time. 17 accepted Christ. What a small sacrifice for such a prodigious consequence… Where are those who will go? Where are those who have been captive-bound by Jesus who will stand and recite the old story with sincerity and boldness? And now I sit, filled with tears for a generation that would rather worship a La-Z-Boy than the Lord. My friends. I’ve no repute with you, but please hear me crying out: It’s just your life! Please, don’t walk away disappointed like the young rich man, who after being confronted with the prospect of the very Kingdom of God could not give up his silly toys.
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I can be thankful for the furnace. Though painful, it is where God does His most dramatic and effective refining work on the human soul:
“Look! I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction.” – Isaiah 48:10
The contrite man and woman of faith will feel the heat of that refining furnace and through a wide and gritty smile say as Job once did: “When He has tried me, I will come out as gold!” And reserved for the man and woman of contrite and broken heart are the rewards of refinement; the dross consumed, the gold enduring. Praise God that he makes the proud humble! Only He can calm the storm of the human heart!
I don’t want to insinuate that I’ve arrived. If anything, I’ve spent a summer hearing God say: “Humble thyself in the sight of the Lord.” And that is my deepest longing and the truest desire of my heart - to be humbled before Him, my sins exposed, and my heart laying bare. Humiliated, yet whole in His presence. I would rather His approval than the approval of any other. I want to want Him… I desire to desire His presence.
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| A fire our team made in the Mongolian countryside |
As my team quickly learned in the Mongolian wilderness, the hottest fires cannot be created with wood and flame alone; not even the blowing of a human can bring a fire to its utmost. It is rather when a strong wind blows on the fire, sweeping through it so hard that the fire seems to be bent low, that the fire is hottest. So may the Holy Spirit blow His mighty rushing wind into to the recesses of my heart to fan the flame He kindled within it the day I first called upon His name… bending me low, igniting my soul, consuming my entire being.
I wonder, what does it take to be consumed? It seems some have prayed and never received, and some have received yet never prayed. What is it we seek? We don’t seek the consuming itself… how meaningless… how… shallow. Instead, the desire to be “consumed,” is a God-lust that is so ravenously hungry it cannot get enough… It’s a craving that is both satisfied and intensified. The deepest longing of this thirsty heart is met by a God who says, “All who are thirsty, come to the water… and you’ll thirst no more!” And God Himself is the drink. He is the Ocean. And all at once He consumes us… mystifying us with His strength.
What does it take to be consumed? What does it take to crest the hill of the Christian plateau… that stagnant milieu of “Christian living” that happens somewhere between daily devotion and Sunday School? I wish I could break the back of that “christian” regime of book-authors and pastors who say (innocently) that they’re devotional, book, tract, online sermon, or church is what you need to get over that sluggish and lackluster hill. While their wallets and/ or egos grow larger from hungry Christians who simply eat what they’re fed, we (the hungry Christians) grow more and more tired of having taken another dissatisfying Christian placebo. After having placated our hunger for the true experience of God for a short time, these placebos seem to work less and less; though they seem to be advertised with more and more hope.
What does it take to be consumed? What does it take to crest the hill of the Christian plateau… that stagnant milieu of “Christian living” that happens somewhere between daily devotion and Sunday School? I wish I could break the back of that “christian” regime of book-authors and pastors who say (innocently) that they’re devotional, book, tract, online sermon, or church is what you need to get over that sluggish and lackluster hill. While their wallets and/ or egos grow larger from hungry Christians who simply eat what they’re fed, we (the hungry Christians) grow more and more tired of having taken another dissatisfying Christian placebo. After having placated our hunger for the true experience of God for a short time, these placebos seem to work less and less; though they seem to be advertised with more and more hope.
Who but Satan ever invented the idea that Christians could propel their own faith through reading the Bible or going to Church? A noble idea, but for the fact that “Christ” is suddenly left out of the “Christian” faith. And it was Christ who said, “But in fact, it is best for you that I go away, because if I don't, the Helper won't come. If I do go away, then I will send him to you…” (John 16:7). How was Christ able to say, “it is to your advantage that I go?!” What was it about the Helper that was so radically advantageous for believers rather than Christ Himself? It was this: that not only would the Helper be able to carry on the ministry of Jesus in more than one place at a time, He would do it by living in Believers – causing them to carry out the ministry of Jesus. We cannot do the Christian life… that is the “Christ” following life, without the Helper. So burn the devotionals and the study Bible if they are not accompanied by, nay submitted to the will and power of the Holy Spirit. If you believe that by your lone grit and Christian determination a devotional or spiritual discipline will mold your heart into the likeness of Christ’s heart, then why do you really need the Helper? Cross out the line on your personal Creed (whether written or unwritten) which speaks of a “Triune” God, and, I would suggest, you scribble in “Biune god” over top of it.
But for those of us who would fight that poisonous tendency to live the “Self-Life” by the power of self rather than the Christian Life by the power of the Helper, I suggest a new prayer. It is a prayer for revelation. A prayer for fresh wind and fresh fire that comes from having seen the Crucified Lord and the glory of His Father. And if we lack longing to behold God with our spiritual eyes (and physical eyes), then we need only ask God – who will plant fresh thirst in the quenched heart with a smile on His face.
“Our God is a Consuming Fire.” We don’t want to just be lit ablaze, we want to be consumed with the fury of God’s fire and love. We’ll be a generation consumed with passion for God because we have seen His holiness. Nothing but the revelation of God’s holiness will do when we are seeking to be set ablaze and consumed with passion for Him. Guilt will only bear a fruit that imitates passion for so long – eventually, as we grow weary of the game called “righteous living,” our flesh reminds us just how satisfying the feast of sin used to be… I believe that’s what they call a buzz kill (the 2nd week after most conferences). Tradition won’t do either (Rom. 10:2), since tradition has a way of developing resentment in the ones who follow it for the simple and brainless sake of following it – they’ll find that it was never a question of passion but only of duty to some well-meaning tradition developed by people who themselves had a real passion that can’t be imitated aside from the seasoned walk of the veteran saint. Riding on the passion of saints who have gone before just won’t do.
Only the revelation of God’s holiness will do if being consumed with passion is the end we seek. Only the un-tinted, extra-biblical, soul-altering, paradigm-shifting, idol-breaking, slit-side and nail-pierced-hands-feeling experience with Jesus will do. And to the one who has truly placed his hands in Christ’s side, and to the one who has truly put his fingers in the holes of Christ’s hands belongs a revelation that will not fail Him… yet it will destroy him, stripping him of all he owns. For that one, the one to whom Christ has revealed Himself, the only response that person will manage to muster is “here am I, send me!” For the one who has met Jesus face-to-face, worldly pleasures will be forsaken for the pleasure of Christ’s presence. It is the revelation of God’s holiness that will drive a business major to forsake money, a nursing major to forsake health, a Bible major to forsake orthodoxy, a communication major to forsake attention, an ICS major to forsake control, or an American to forsake the calloused heart where self sits on the throne.
The revelation of God’s holiness is the only means by which a follower of Jesus will find themselves sustainably consumed with an unquenchable fire of passion for God. So we cry: “Rain down Your holiness God! Show Yourself to us! Wreck us and consume the dross and the chaff in our lives! We welcome the war of wrath you have stored up for our flesh – purify us in the furnace of affliction which engulfs our flesh and consumes our souls with passion for You!”
Where are the upright ones among us to whom God will call out with furious longing saying, “Ask me! Ask me to show you my glory!” And who will respond back, “Yes! Show me! Take it all!” Just a taste and we’ll be undone! Just a glimpse will consume us! One glimpse will refine us! He is not just the consuming fire, but the refining fire!
Holy Spirit, I ask that you would breathe and blow your mighty wind into the flame of our hearts – consume us! Consume the dross of our flesh and consume our hearts with passion… with a zeal that does not betray us even when the flesh tries to whisper in our ear. And when the flesh does whisper in our ear seductively of how satisfying it was to have once been set at its feast, may You blow all the more into the flame you’ve set in our hearts through the blood of Christ! Breathe on us with a holy wind and so in consume us with a holy fire! Don’t relent – though it be like a tooth from the jaw we will embrace the pain of amputating the flesh with joy as you sweep through us with the satisfaction of your presence. Forsaking all other passions we embrace You… just you and nothing else… not your blessings, nor your works… just you, with full abandon – we abandon passion for the creation that we might pick up, afresh, a passion for the Creator.
Amen
Until the Whole World Hears!
Love and Peace to you,
Love and Peace to you,
Kyle
