People of the Fire

"He that cometh after me is mightier than I ... he shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit, and with fire" (Matthew 3:11)

With the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost the same imagery (fire) was continued. "And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them" (Acts 2:3). That which came upon the disciples in that upper room was nothing less than God Himself.

To their mortal eyes He appeared as fire, and may we not safely conclude that those Scripture-taught believers knew at once what it meant? The God who had appeared to them as fire throughout all their long history was now dwelling in them as fire. He had moved from without to the interior of their lives. The Shekinah that had once blazed over the mercy seat now blazed on their foreheads as an external emblem of the fire that had invaded their natures.

This was Deity giving Himself to ransomed men. The flame was the seal of a new union. They were now men and women of the fire.

A new heart comes with regeneration, the pure heart by the baptism of the Holy Spirit and of fire. We are born into one and baptized into the other.

~A. W. Tozer~

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Back Into the Heart of God

"...for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are ... And ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's" (1 Corinthians 3:17, 23)

Deity indwelling men! That, I say, is Christianity, and no man has experienced rightly the power of Christian belief until he has known this for himself as a living reality. Everything else is preliminary to this.

Incarnation, atonement, justification, regeneration - what are these but acts of God preparatory to the work of invading and the act of indwelling the redeemed human soul? Man, who moved out of the heart of God by sin, now moves back into the heart of God by redemption. God, who moved out of the heart of man because of sin, now enters again His ancient dwelling to drive out His enemies and once more make the place of His feet glorious.

Regeneration is like building a house and having the work done well. Sanctification is having the owner come and dwell in the house and fill it with gladness and life and beauty.

Shut in with Thee, O Lord, forever,
My wayward feet no more to roam;
What power from Thee my soul can sever?
The center of God's will my home.

~A. W. Tozer~