27. Word as Fire

© Daniel Yordy – 2020

Fire is many things. Everything fire is comes out from the nature and being of God, and everything fire does shows us the purpose and function of much Word inside God’s being that comes into our lives through the speaking of Jesus.

Consider this line – Sustaining all things by the word of His power (Hebrews 1:3).

“Word of power” is Fire.

Our Purpose and Ministry
Before we begin, however, what is our purpose in studying word as fire?

Our first purpose is to KNOW the heart-gut thinking of God, our second purpose is to know the heart-gut thinking of this one individual created in the likeness of God, and our third purpose is to know how to weave these two together.

Here is our injunction.

God has already reconciled and reconnected us to Himself through Christ, and has given to us the ministry of reconciliation, how that God was inside of Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting to them their false steps, and [this same God] has placed inside of us the Word of reconciliation. For the sake of Christ, therefore, we are ambassadors as God Himself encouraging and inviting through us. We deeply desire for the sake of Christ: Be reconciled, connect yourself back [through faith] to God (2 Corinthians 5:18-20).

Let’s list the powerful things in this passage.

1. God takes the initiative, always connecting Himself with humans first.

2. God’s purpose in sending Christ was to accomplish this reconnection with humans from inside of Jesus and through His every step.

3. God is so interested in reconnecting with humans that He pays no attention to all the false steps and vicious disconnection.

4. God has given us the ministry of showing God’s reconciliation to people.

5. God has placed inside of us the Word of reconciliation, that is, inside of us are the words that show each person how God has joined Himself to them already.

6. We serve as God Himself, inviting individuals to receive God’s reconnection with them.

7. We show people how God is already interwoven with their own self-stories as they believe that He is.


This is not a ministry of “bringing people to God,” but a ministry of showing people God with them already. We call God into His creation by calling each individual person as God already with them, according to the gospel.

And again, we know how to do this wondrous service first by knowing the Words that are God’s heart now planted in us, second by knowing the words that are this individual person’s self-story as they share it with us, and third, knowing the words that interweave God and this one as word together, that each might know God with them and believe.

For the first time in my life, I know what it means to be a minister of Christ.

So, let’s keep this incredible purpose fully in view as we look at the differing kinds of Word in God, in the Bible, in creation, in other people, and in us.

Understanding Fire
Fire in nature and the Bible is many things. One definition of fire does not cover all of its functions and meaning in either realm. Nonetheless, let’s start with one passage that gives us a large part of the meaning of fire in the Bible that is central to a majority of Scriptures containing fire.

If, moreover, anyone builds upon the foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, the work of each will become visible; indeed, the day will make it clear because it is unveiled inside of fire; and the work of each, what sort it is, the fire itself will prove. If anyone’s work will remain, which he built, he will receive a wage. If anyone’s work will be burned up, he himself will be saved, yet as through fire (1 Corinthians 3:12-15).

I never really understood this before, though I have heard good preaching on it. Having just written of the second most difficult period of my life, I now understand it perfectly.

Giving an account of one’s life inside of light is fire. And light always means the requirement of full honesty – no twisting to hide will operate or darkness remain. But giving an account of one’s own life is not the hottest part of the fire. The hottest part of the fire is being featured in the accounts, given in light, of others as they share each moment of your involvement in their life.

We are not “saved” by our works; we are saved through fire. But “works” and “reward” are simple, practical, and unescapable.

When someone else recounts your involvement in their life, there are only one of two possibilities, either-or. Either your role towards them brought them increase and blessing or your role towards them brought them loss and ruin.

There’s not really a neutral, that is, in regards to actual involvement. I think of some whom I could place into a “neutral” role towards me, but the truth is, I enjoyed them and valued my knowing of them, and thus their minor role in my life was a blessing to me.

And then the reward is also simple. The reward is that person’s increase. I see no greater reward for myself than your increase in God as a result of my role in your life. Why? Because you, inside the full and joyous knowledge of God, are the greatest treasure in the universe.

Let me give some examples. I have recounted and will recount more of specific instances when I spoke incredibly wrongfully towards my mother. As I give an account of those things and as she also gives an account of my impact on her in those moments, my “works” are shown to be destructive. I confess how wrong I was and ask forgiveness. My “works” towards my mother in those moments are “burned up”; they are gone. Yet in their place will remain a pure and perfect love inside of God.

Then let’s consider Brian Dwyer and his need to tell me I was doing it wrong on so many occasions. Although it was always difficult for me, there was never any real animosity. Nonetheless, after 8 ½ years of dealing with Brian, I value him as a brother above many. Any difficulty he caused me, and sometimes it was overwhelming, I gladly place into the fire that it might be transformed, and that I might receive Brian as my good friend forever.

Do you see the power of the sons of God in the midst of the fire? Some of Brian’s contributions to me would be called “loss.” Nonetheless, I have the authority to turn them to gain, that both he and I might receive the reward of joy in the knowledge of God with us.

Then, consider the bully who, in 45 minutes time, brought incredible loss and ruin into my life experience over the course of many years. His “account” will not produce anything of value. Nothing will remain for him or for me. Nonetheless, it is only by passing through such fire that he will find any kind of resolution for his life. The fire will leave nothing except his own continued life. It would be a huge mistake for me right now to imagine that I “should” extend to him the same transformation that I would gladly extend to Brian. You cannot play games with such things, for their power for ruin is greater right now than our human frame.

Fire removes; fire transforms; and fire consumes. Fire will remove the wrongful things I spoke to my mother. Fire will transform many interactions with Brian into goodness forever. Fire will consume the works of the bully and I will consider them no more. I never knew him.

This picture includes much of the uses of “fire” in the Bible, but by no means all. And there are many more functions of fire in nature, all of which come out from the good-speaking of Jesus and reveal to us the nature and being of our Father. But at least we’re beginning to get a handle on part of this thing called “FIRE.”

Fire in Nature
There are two kinds of fire in the natural, electrical fire, such as lightning, and chemical fire, that is, the rapid oxidation of matter. We see, then, that electrical fire, which is the cause of everything, is the energeia-of-life fire, whereas the burning of wood, etc., is the consuming fire.

I have been watching recent videos put out by the Thunderbolts Project, in particular, the Safire project that is showing them so many incredible things about electricity in space. The professor of science who was speaking was saying things about electricity in space that sounded very much like the things I teach out from the Bible concerning God and His ways.

Here is their YouTube channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvHqXK_Hz79tjqRosK4tWYA. Their Safire project is the most important and most exciting scientific research happening at present, but it has no place inside the plans of those who control this world. I would not be surprised if their work was found to be part of God’s preparation for the dawning of a new day.

Electricity is now an utterly common part of our daily lives. We use it all the time without thinking about it. Yet no one on earth can explain to you what it is or why it is. This is one thing refreshing about the real scientists at the Thunderbolts Project; they state clearly and regularly what we do not know and what we may never know.

Fire that consumes is also essential to our lives. Such fire is what speeds us down the road in our cars or propels us through the air in jet planes. For centuries it has been that which provided light and warmth to everyone. Prior to our moving to Fort St. John, burning firewood was almost entirely the only way our homes were heated. From age nine, I have split a lot of firewood.

Yet fire must always be carefully confined. I have seen it get out of control so many times and when it does, it just destroys everything. Even wildfire serves its purpose, however, for if allowed to burn itself out, it cleans up the forest floors of debris. The greatest wildfires we know today happen only because the lesser fires were not allowed to burn.

Here’s the thing to think about, however. All my life, I have used fire, daily. And I and everyone else treated that so-common fire, of whatever type it might be, with utmost care, for we feared it in a proper way. And our every thought in the placing of fire was to protect everything else from it with the right buffers in-between. Nonetheless, we placed that fire right in the center of our homes, for without it we would have frozen to death in the darkness.

I am sure that most every reader remembers sitting around a campfire of an evening, looking into the flames and the coals. It was always both a romantic and a soul-searching time. In fact, at the Albuquerque community, when we gathered around the campfire, we had fire and air, but I missed water flowing over rocks and wept, for I was not complete.

We use fire to prepare our food and often our drink as well. It was fire that made my cup of coffee this morning.

You know, it would be a great thing for someone to do an extensive research paper on all the many ways fire is part of our lives and how we have learned to live with fire and its power. It would be a large study. And every part of that study would give us ever greater insight into grappling with the God of Fire who fills us with ALL the FIRE that He is.

We must also consider, however, that fire in nature is also life. The energeia of your body that causes your body to be alive is both a chemical fire, in the burning of sugar or fat and an electrical fire in the flow of communication through the nerves and as the very energeia of each cell. The strongest picture of fire as life, however, is the photosynthesis of plants, the source of all sustenance of living things.

In fact, a plant shows us all four of these elements in perfect harmony. Half of a plant is deep inside the earth, drawing water and nutrition into itself from the earth. Half of a plant is in the air, drawing nutrition into itself from the air. But a plant lives only because the fire of the sunlight causes the water inside of it to move and because that same fire transforms inert molecules into the building blocks of life. A plant is rooted equally in both heaven and earth for place and nutrition, and a plant lives by the combined qualities of fire and water.

Fire is power and light and warmth. If fire ceased, all life would also cease; it is the energeia of our lives

Fire in the Bible
When Jesus rebuked James and John for wanting to destroy human lives with fire, He was setting in concrete that God’s definition of “fire” all through the Bible was very different from the normal human view of the destruction that fire causes. To humans, the fire of God destroys human lives forever; to God, His fire serves only to remove all that is not of Him.

God-Fire leaves the human free of all that once destroyed.

The question is never what the Bible appears to say, but how we read and hear the Bible, whether by Spirit and life, seeing Father through Jesus, or by letter and death, seeing God through the serpent. This is God’s doing, and it is the same for every person from the garden of Eden until now.

And so, let’s bring that last statement about fire into the Bible. – “If fire ceased, all life would cease.” Fire is the original cause of life, indeed, of all things.

Living indeed is the Word of God, and energeoing {fire}, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing through as far as the distribution of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and judging the pondering and purposes of the heart {earth} (Hebrews 4:12 – rough JSV).

Fire, in the Bible, is life on the one hand and judgment on the other. Fire transforms from one thing to another. Fire, then, is the most important quality of God to those who are lost.

Let’s bring in just a few representative Scriptures. Each of these is worth reading through and pondering deeply.

Exodus 3:2 And the Angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed. 40:38 For the cloud of the LORD was above the tabernacle by day, and fire was over it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel, throughout all their journeys.

Leviticus 3:5 And Aaron’s sons shall burn it on the altar upon the burnt sacrifice, which is on the wood that is on the fire, as an offering made by fire, a sweet aroma to the Lord.

Deuteronomy 4:15-16 Take careful heed to yourselves, for you saw no form when the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, lest you act corruptly and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of any figure… 4:24 For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. 4:33 & 36 Did any people ever hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and live? – Out of heaven He let you hear His voice, that He might instruct you; on earth He showed you His great fire, and you heard His words out of the midst of the fire.

[Deuteronomy 4 is one of those chapters that I read over and over, inside a deep knowing of great power, for I knew that God was revealing Himself through these words, though I did not yet know what they meant.]

1 Kings 18:24 And I will call on the name of the LORD; and the God who answers by fire, He is God.

2 Chronicles 7:1-3 When Solomon had finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices; and the glory of the LORD filled the temple. And the priests could not enter the house of the LORD, because the glory of the LORD had filled the LORD’s house.

Psalms 50:2-4 Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God has shined forth. Our God shall come, and shall not keep silent; A fire shall devour before Him, And it shall be very tempestuous all around Him. He shall call to the heavens from above, And to the earth, that He may judge His people…

Isaiah 33:14 The sinners in Zion are afraid; trembling grips the ungodly: “Who of us can dwell with a consuming fire? Who of us can dwell with everlasting flames?” 66:15-16 For behold, the LORD will come with fire—His chariots are like a whirlwind—to execute His anger with fury and His rebuke with flames of fire. For by fire and by His sword, the LORD will execute judgment on all flesh, and many will be slain by the LORD.

Jeremiah 5:14 Therefore this is what the Lord GOD of Hosts says: “Because you have spoken this word, I will make My words a fire in your mouth and this people the wood it consumes.” 20:9 If I say, “I will not mention Him or speak any more in His name,” His message becomes a fire burning in my heart, shut up in my bones, and I become weary of holding it in, and I cannot prevail. [Word as fire.]

John 2:16-17 John answered, saying to all, “I indeed baptize you with water; but One mightier than I is coming, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather the wheat into His barn; but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire.”

Hebrews 10:26-27 There no longer remains a sacrifice {inside our consciousness} but a certain fear and expectation of judgment, a zealous fire that is ready to eat up that which opposes. 12:29 For our God is a consuming fire.

1 Peter 1:7 That the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

As we have seen, every mention of “unquenchable fire” by Jesus must be understood by His statement that such fire is only for the saving of people’s lives. And thus we see that most references to fire in Scripture are presenting some aspect of this fire that consumes the false and sets forth the true.

Fire in Shadowfell
I find such truth of God in the descriptions of Juliette Marillier in the Shadowfell story. I want to bring some of those things into this study. Neryn is on a quest to meet with and learn from each of the four Guardians, of Fire, Water, Earth, and Air, in order to call the invisible things into being seen and known by all.

Neryn seeks out three of the Guardians to learn from them, but the Guardian of Fire, called “The Master of Shadows” seeks Neryn out and comes to her, first, before all the others, and last, after all the others. This title raises the question of what is real and what is not real, that is, what is appearance and what is substance.

And of truth, this is the central issue of seeing and of judgment.

But the Master of Shadows comes first to Neryn at the ending of her proving time, in order to enable her to pass through the seventh and most important element of her proving, and that is extending her forgiveness out over the people in her life, both those having passed and those in the present.

As I read this passage aloud to my wife, it felt to me as an exact description of everything I am going through in writing each chapter of my life story. The quotes here are overlong, so I will just explain the meaning.

The Master of Shadows takes Neryn down a deep cave, a cave that represents her deepest memories. She carries a flaming torch. As she plunges into the waters at the bottom of the cave, into her memories, she wonders if she has not plunged into a lake of fire. Her family members come to her, those who had died, her brother, her mother, her father, her grandmother. Her father had died in flames after trying to sell Neryn in a card game. To each she speaks words of forgiveness and healing and receives the same from them. She releases each to no longer be bound by her own hurt.

It is very clear to me that this IS what fire and judgment are all about and why giving an account inside of Christ Jesus is our only passageway into joy.

Fire in Meaning Expressed by Words

I began to look at synonyms of fire. If one were to gather a list of all possible words in English related to fire, heat, light, and electricity, you would likely accumulate more than five hundred words and expressions covering a wide range of meanings.

Here are just a few showing this wide range just for fire and heat words. Adversity, bonfire, dynamism, embers, frenzied, hearth, in a tizzy, oxidizing, roasting, up in smoke, white-hot.

Yet, even more than these, all the antonyms fit our topic as well, all the words of ice and cold, lethargy and darkness, words of the absence of fire. These are all woven into God’s meanings as well.

Fire as light defines space, for by light, we distinguish where one thing ends and another begins, and things close at hand versus things far away. Without light, everything is merged together as one into nothingness. Fire as energy defines time, for energy is movement and time is our human measurement of movement. Without time, everything would be happening at once, something quite unreal. Time is very much a part of God, yet He Himself is not subject to it.

And both of these are judgment, for by judgment we distinguish and define and by judgment we set in order of occurrence. 

Aspects of Fire
One thing amazing about these four, fire, water, earth, and air, is that they are so inter-related in so many applications of the physical world as well as in the spiritual world. And possibly the best example of this interrelationship for us is the plant.

Half of a plant’s structure is in the air, and half of a plant’s structure is in the earth. Part of a plant’s building blocks are drawn from the air, and part of a plant’s building blocks are drawn from the earth. Yet this gathering together of materials in the joining of earth and air cannot take place without the power of fire from the sun, generating all those connections that we call “plant life.” The problem with fire, however, is that without water all through the plant, the fire would do nothing more than burn it up. Because the elements of the plant are bathed in water, the fire transforms them rather than consumes them.

And it’s so easy to see our spiritual reality all through this description.

Yet there are many other examples of these four operating together, or two together as well. For that reason, I want to look briefly at the interaction of fire with itself, first, that is, pure fire against strange fire, and then together with earth, air, and water.

Yet also remember that we are speaking of Spirit Words, things that we speak and ways that we see. Here are the four aspects of fire.

• Fire that Consumes – fire with false fire.

• Fire that Proves – fire with earth.

• Fire that Transforms – fire with air.

• Fire that Gives Life – fire with water.

Fire consumes only that which is false. And false happens only out from a false fire. Nothing real or enduring is ever consumed by fire, but only that which is imaginary or hurtful.

False fire is the belief that I, imagining myself to be disconnected from God and thus on my own, then imagine that I generate myself, that I direct my steps, that I am my own energeia. Every aspect of God as a consuming fire continues until I am absolutely confident that Christ is all that I am in every moment of my life and that my energeia and God’s Energeia are utterly entwined together, that is, synergeoing with God towards all things good.

What has happened? All that is either imaginary or hurtful has been burned away.

When fire is applied to earth, however, it serves to prove out what is good.

That the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Just as the elements of the earth are proven in the fire, so the fire of difficulty proves Christ true to us and as all our life. This is why we rejoice when everything goes wrong, as Paul and James both instructed.

In fact, think about fine steel, shaped as a sword. The workman takes iron from earth and mixes it with carbon, originally out from the air. He then plunges this mix into fire and then into water. And thus the elements of the earth are proven sharp and true.

The transforming power of fire is shown to us in the burning of incense on the Golden Altar. The fire turns that incense offered to God into a sweet aroma that fills the air and is then carried by the air into the Holiest. We are made free from all that ties us down by the fire.

Finally, in order to give life, fire requires water. We will see later on that, to give life, water requires fire. Water allows the elements of the earth to move around easily, to mix and remix according to the power of the fire. And water keeps the earth parts of a plant or animal or even a car engine cool so that the fire produces good things without burning everything up.

Fire without water only consumes; fire with water brings forth life.

Yet, when fire gets out of control, it is water that calms it down and even extinguishes it. Yet when fire is applied to water, the water vanishes by being transformed into an element of the air.

The truth is, if we gathered all the books that have been written regarding any aspect of fire in any form it takes, we would have an immense library on that one topic alone. And every single aspect of fire recorded in those books is describing for us just one more aspect of God our Father and of that Word continuously being spoken as the Lord Jesus.

Connecting Fire with Judgment
In looking at the Bible verses above, fire and judgment are tied together directly in Psalm 50, Isaiah 66, and Hebrews 10. Nonetheless, it is easy to see the metaphors of fire as judgment in all the other verses. The “threshing floor,” for instance, to which Jesus referred, is clearly a metaphor of judgment, that is, distinguishing one thing from another, separating between what is true and what is false.

At the same time, writing my life story as giving an account of my life in the presence of God, has shown me clearly what God means by hades. Translating the Greek hades into the Latin purgatoria is entirely accurate in God’s meaning. I will write more about this reality in chapters coming up, but let me explain briefly the importance of fire as judgment for salvation. 

You cannot force anyone out of their false story, even if you had the power “to do so.” Your “power” would do nothing more than break the person’s psyche and drive them further into the darkness.

Paul’s claim that every knee will bow can happen in only one way. Someone has to reach deep into the heart of each one, convince that person that he or she is safe and loved. And then gently guide them through the overwhelming fire of giving thanks inside every moment of their lives.

Nonetheless, there is no way that full release can come without a face to face engagement with every individual person whom you have wronged in some way or who wronged you. God requires justice and justice requires personal and mutual resolution. God requires friendship as the end result of all human interaction. And this is a passing through the mightiest of fires.

I had imagined that our time in Oregon would be easier to write. Yet I am faced with FIRE once again and I am reluctant to plunge back into that Fire. You see, I cannot pass through this time in Oregon without presenting that aspect of myself of which I am most ashamed, as I well should be. Yet my problem is that, while I can speak words of confession of fault, of forgiveness, and of giving thanks, I cannot resolve the problem as God requires until such time when I can find a full resolution with my own mother, just her and me in full openness and understanding and many tears.

Forgiveness is fire; it is judgment. And it is the only passage into the knowledge of Father-with-us.

Calling a God of Fire
Calling a God of Fire is not speaking fire words at people. That is the false fire that James and John had gotten all excited about, the false fire that Jesus rebuked.

Calling God as Fire begins with words of respect and proceeds to words of forgiveness. Only then can God as Fire become the giving of thanks.

God as Fire begins as the example of firstfruits, life laid down and love poured out.

Nonetheless, we can see that the knowledge of God cannot begin for anyone apart from one brief moment of honesty. I suspect that every single born again believer experienced the same moment of honesty as they were born again – I need Someone to help me.

That moment of honesty comes from light, and light is FIRE.

That means that the beginning of God called into the knowledge of anyone is that particular light that causes this first honesty in this particular person.

Paul said in Romans 2 that it is the goodness of God that brings a person to this moment of honesty. And in Romans 12, he pointed out that responding with goodness is fire.

This chapter has become overlong, and so I will let it end with that thought.