20.3 Fire and Healing
‘Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, and seeing you will see and not perceive; for the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal them’ (Matthew 18:14-15).
In the summer of 1996, God spoke a word to me in the quietness of my spirit and completely separate from my own thoughts. He said to me, “Son, you have a sectarian heart.” I did not defend myself; I did not condemn myself; I did not try to do better. Rather, in that moment, I simply agreed with God, “Yes, Father, You are right.”
I Was Healed. I agreed with God in that moment because I saw clearly how it was that I had acted towards others in such a way. As I look back now, I realize that the sectarian heart by which I had mistreated others was removed from me by God in that moment. Why? Because I placed myself in the light and in His hands. If my wrongful actions had caused a breach between me and another, I would have asked them for forgiveness inside a Spirit of peace.
What really happened when God said those words to me? – The lights turned on. And why was I able to see? Because I had long before come to peace living inside of a God who is consuming FIRE. The result? – I was healed.
Hurting Others. If I had defended myself; if I had condemned myself; if I had promised to do better, then God would have looked for someone else, and Isaiah would have been speaking of me.
Adam chose control over his wife because he was unthankful for the way God had made him. Adam sealed himself and his children into unending hurt when he was dishonest in his response back to God.
Humans hurt humans. In fact, we’re really good at it. You hurt other people. You do, full stop. The source of your hurting of others is unthankfulness. But hurt is forgiven as we walk together valuing our relationship greater than our right. Dishonesty, on the other hand, seals the hurt and destroys the church.
Light. The lights are turning on.
Fire causes light, and light exposes every hidden motive. What is light called by someone who refuses to be wrong? – Hellfire and the wrath of God. What is light called by someone who places Jesus upon themselves in every moment? – Father.
The lights are turning on. No one can stop them; no one can shut them off; no one can escape. We destroy the church by two things – unthankfulness and dishonesty. Healing is the normality of God, and God is known out from two things – justifying God and being willing to be wrong.
A Godly Response. To stand in the light is to justify God, even while willing to be wrong, yet placing one’s self entirely into God’s hands only. It’s called living inside of everlasting FIRE. The one who defends self; the one who condemns self and others; the one who hides self behind a pretense; the one who promises to try to do better, places himself into his own hands. God calls it “strange fire,” for He cannot know it.
When someone shares with you, in the gentleness of Christ, that something you did to them caused great hurt, you have only one Godly response. Only one. You say to them, in sorrow, “I was wrong; please forgive me.” And you say nothing more. It’s called light. It’s called God. It’s called valuing friendship above yourself. And it’s the only path to healing.
Defining a Human Judge. This text is an attempt to define the human as one who is just like the Lord Jesus Christ, the first One of our kind. This chapter is an attempt to define such a human as one who judges others into life. In the next lesson, “Judging Others,” I hope to lay out the path of judgment, that is, the path of life, as it comes out from true humans towards others. In this shorter lesson, I want to define fire and light, including giving a definition of a human judge. In this way, I hope to fill in some critical understandings needed regarding our role as the revelation of Christ in the ending of human folly.
Fire and Light. Fire is the intensity that is God that requires justice and honesty inside Himself and therefore inside of and among all created things. Paul said in Ephesians 4 that light is that which makes visible. Fire is the cause of light. Light makes everything visible to all. Light means honesty.
Fire is the cause of all human prosperity. It runs our cars and heats our homes. Fire is the cause of all life; it provides the energy by which everything operates. Yet fire by itself is dangerous, for it will burn. In order for fire to result in healing, as God intends, it must be tempered by water. Water and fire together bring wholeness, that is, salvation.
The Buffer In-Between. I can define God’s effort through my entire life as one thing. God has taught me to place Jesus between myself and the Fire. I then turn and teach you to place Jesus upon yourself. A woman clothed with the sun is a Church clothed with a God of justice and honesty, that is, Fire, with nothing hidden. Her child is humans without dishonesty in the presence of God.
Fire is absolutely necessary for all that humans are and do, but you can’t use fire without the right buffer in-between. The lights are turning on. Hiding inside of dishonesty in the imaginations of one’s mind will no longer work. It will no longer keep a person from looking straight at what they have done and calling it what it is.
Clothed with Christ. The firstfruits of Christ are those who clothe themselves fully with the Lord Jesus, that means with honesty, now, before the lights turn on. Their ministry as judges, then, is to place Christ upon those whose nakedness is exposed by the inevitable brightness of the light, that they might be healed.
But, as the saying goes, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.” No one will actually drink of Christ unless they are willing to cease all their strange fire, to burn against God no more. One who says, “God, You are RIGHT when my brother shows me I am wrong. I place myself in Your hands. Let it be to me according to all that Jesus is,” finds themselves HEALED.
Holding onto Demons. Why do some Christians love their pet demons, drawing those demons to piss upon themselves in order to perpetuate dishonesty and cruelty towards their fellow Christians? I will always be wrong if I try to claim that I know the motives of a person with whom I am relating. However, since I know myself, and since I know other people, I can speak generally.
I think that the primary reason why a Christian holds tightly to the filthiness of demon pets is that they themselves did wicked things against other people, things which they refuse to bring into honesty. Treating people with religious dishonesty is wicked and cruel. The only way such awfulness can be healed is through honesty, face to face and heart to heart.
Defining Darkness. Let me define darkness. There are two kinds of darkness.
The first kind of darkness is innocent ignorance. This is the original condition of all created things. As we walk together, we do and speak foolishly and hurtfully, primarily because we are ignorant of how our actions and words hurt other people. Yet when they come to us, we are stricken, because we value their friendship above all. This is normal inside the light of God.
The second kind of darkness is willful dishonesty. This kind of darkness clothes itself with every style of pretending. This kind of darkness is hostile against God. This kind of darkness will vanish when the lights turn on.
A Judge Heals. “Behold, I am continuously coming like a thief. Blessed is the one wakeful and alert, keeping watch over his garments, so that he should not walk naked, and that they might not see his shame” (Revelation 15:16).
A judge is one who clothes another with the Atonement of Christ. A judge is one who shows that it is safe to be honest. You see, all the “hellfire and wrath” stuff is only what is going on inside the mind and heart of the one who would rather offer strange fire in order to inflict pain upon a God of justice and honesty.
A judge is one who brings the soothing calmness of the water of life upon the one whose life seems to be all burned up. A judge is one who heals and makes whole.
The Apocalypse. God placed the skin of a beast upon Adam and Eve, thus signifying a barrier between them and the normal light of God-Fire, a light that would have burned them up. The Apocalypse is the removal of that cover. It’s not really that the lights “turn on,” but rather, that the “shade-cloth” is removed.
When that happens, two things vanish from humans who are not clothed with the Lord Jesus Christ. – False story lines of pretending and pet demons. Both are gone, but there is nothing in their place. This is FIRE.
The same judgment, the same ministry of clothing this one person with the Lord Jesus, will be towards those in all-light, with no protection, as it is to those now who sit in darkness.
The River. Here is one sitting in the light with no protection. The ability to defend self, the ability to condemn self, the ability to hide self behind pretending or demons, the ability to “promise” that self will “do better,” all these false coverings are gone.
All that is left is me and what I said and did and the actual motives of my heart.
We who have already placed everything we have said and done into the LIGHT, in all honesty, and enclothed ourselves, the other person, and that moment with the Lord Jesus Christ, are true judges. We judge by what we hear the Father speak, and we judge towards the Father’s desire of seeking and saving the lost. And by our judgment, we send forth a river of life, the tempering buffer of water, into the life of one not yet covered by Christ in their own hearts. The final result of Fire and Water is the healing of LIFE.