Set Me on Fire (eBook)

Chapter 1

God’s Fiery Presence

Encountering God’s Presence

I love the presence of God. How could we ever adequately express the beauty, power, and reality of the glorious presence of God? For me, there is nothing to compare to the awareness of His nearness. We have nothing better to do in this life than be in His presence. Beholding God with the eyes of our heart, we find Him more glorious in holiness and love than we had imagined. We can cultivate a depth of relationship with God that goes far beyond an hour on a Sunday. You can never be the same after encountering God. We must never settle for half-hearted and jaded religion that has to be endured, not enjoyed. God wants us to know Him. It really matters that every Christian cultivates a lifestyle of encounter with God. Seeking His presence is the only way to sustain a fire-filled Christian life. Encountering God changes everything.

What do I mean by “encounter”? In my experience, it is about heart-to-heart personal connection with God. It is moving from knowing about God to being transformed by being with Him. Encounter is about actually having a relationship with God that takes me over. God has captured my heart and my life is now His. At its heart is the experience of His goodness. It is tasting and seeing God as He is, and allowing the atmosphere of His eternal beauty and glory to pervade our lives. When this happens, there is a great intimacy as well as an awesome holy fear. Encounter is not centred on my needs and me; it is about God. It is birthed in the place where we see God for who He is. Seeing God, as He is, even just a glimpse of Him, will leave us breathless with holy fear, lost in wonder, and satiated with a closeness and intimacy we never thought possible. This kind of encounter means we will never thirst again.

Have you ever been completely overwhelmed by seeing God for who He really is? I will never forget the first time I read A. W. Tozer’s book, The Knowledge of the Holy. The affection, awe, and friendship with God, with which Tozer described the attributes of God, drew me into God’s presence in a whole new way. God is absolutely holy, perfect love, and outrageously good at the same time as revealing holy wrath as judge. He is able to be all this perfectly and simultaneously because He is perfect in holiness and love. I am completely astonished by who God is.

Another leader from whom I have learned much about God’s presence is Mike Bickle. When I was a young adult, his beautiful book Passion for Jesus changed my life. I realized for the first time the tremendous affection Jesus has for me, and all I wanted to do was respond with abandonment to Him.

These spiritual fathers are friends of God. They know the value of the presence of God and they consider it nothing to give all to have that treasure. How hungry are we to be such friends of God? Are we ready for the fire to take hold of us?

The Bible is a catalogue of God encounters. They are rarer in the Old Testament as the Holy Spirit came upon particular people for specific tasks, but in the New Testament, the door is thrown wide open to everyone to encounter God. That is the heart of the gospel. God has always longed for His presence to be the priority of His people. Encountering God is a personal experience that changes your life. You can never be the same again.

Let me say very clearly that authentic God encounters start at the cross and the empty tomb of Jesus. They start as we bow our knee, confess our sin, believe in Jesus, and receive His gift of salvation. Jesus opened up the way to know God. He died and rose again to bring us to God, to make relationship with God possible. He rose again to bring us into the new life of the kingdom. Our relationship with God is dynamic because He is alive and we live with Him.

To encounter Him is also to be touched by His awesome fiery presence. Somehow, this fire expresses God’s divine character. It is the fire of God. His fire captures His heart and the essence of His nature and character. That is why God wants a fiery church to represent Him. You can’t meet with Him and be left cold and distant from Him. Fire is not merely the symbol of fervent faith; it goes to the heart of who God is and how He has chosen to reveal Himself to us. God is trying to communicate to us His priorities for our lives.

Divine fire is imparted through encounter. There are no shortcuts. A burning heart is ignited by an encounter. You will catch the fire from our fiery Father in heaven. There is so much more. We can have such a low expectation of the Christian life, but there is so much more than we have known. There is more of God than we know, but it comes through giving ourselves to Him more and more.

I meet so many people who feel a painful nagging sense of unworthiness or insignificance. They believe that Bible characters had God encounters, but they don’t see that such encounters are available to them today. The devil does not mind you believing in the importance of meeting with God, as long as he can keep you from actually having an encounter yourself. This is more than good doctrine; it is rooted in holy and radical experience. What is keeping you from being set on fire through an encounter with God?

Face to Face with Fire

Moses was well acquainted with the fire of God and meeting with God, but the people were far more hesitant. For Moses, having face-to-face times with God was a necessity, not a luxury. Moses needed God’s presence. He wholly depended upon it. We know that the presence of God was a big deal for Moses, who refused to go anywhere without the assurance of God’s presence (Exodus 33:15).

The Ten Commandments were given to Moses against the backdrop of a fiery encounter. God wanted His people to be a people who encountered Him, but only Moses entered that blessing. The people held back because of fear. How they missed out! They could have known God as a whole nation in such a powerful way, yet they chose rather to stay distant and so ended up with a distorted view of Him. They could only see God through a lens of fear rather than with reverent intimacy. Understanding of who God is will affect what we believe we can experience of Him. That is why waiting upon God for who He is, is the key to encountering Him in prayer. Knowing God starts with seeing Him accurately by faith. Remember, the blessing for the pure in heart is to see God.

God’s fire is for meant for you and me. We are meant to taste and feel its effect. Look at Joel 2:28 and Acts 2:17: God promised to pour out His Spirit on all people. Pentecost was an encounter. It made the presence of God available to everyone who believes. We need people today in our generation who have been to the fiery mountain of encounter with God and have heard His voice. In the place of encounter, that which is eternal becomes internal.

We can live from an encounter with God, and we can lead others into an encounter with Him. You and I are today as close to God as we actually want to be. What aspect of His fire does God want to pour into your life? It may be an increase of His holiness or intimacy and passion. Don’t miss what God is doing in you, and don’t be content to stay at a distance from Him.

My Meetings with God

Reflect with me for a while on your own experience of God. How would you describe your experience of His presence? There is a beautiful phrase in the first verse of Psalm 40: “I waited patiently for the Lord.” I believe that this waiting upon God is the secret to our own encounters. We are so busy and task-focused in our lives, and this stressed-out way of living has affected our connection with God. Being willing to simply wait is vital. I don’t mind how you wait, whether quietly or noisily, but we must wait. We are waiting upon Him. I love the simplicity of the prayer, “Come, Holy Spirit.” Wait expectantly with this prayer on your heart and lips.

Before the outpouring of Pentecost, what were the followers of Jesus doing? Acts 1:4 holds a key for us: “Wait for the gift my Father promised.” There is much emphasis today on simply receiving the Spirit through prayer ministry, and rightly so, but I would love to see us wait more upon God. There is a difference. Many people are not prepared to wait beyond five minutes, so the spark does not have time to burst into a flame. There is a heart preparation for the fire that can only be done in the time of waiting.

As I have reflected and remembered what God has been doing in my life over the past thirty years, some of the most significant moments were powerful encounters with God when I was on my knees by my bedside as a teenager. These precious moments with God still affect me to this day. It was here I learned to wait upon God. I became a Christian as a nine-year-old through a Faith Mission evangelist, Revd Angus Morrison, who came to our remote Hebridean island of Gigha in 1985. That was only the start of my journey in God’s presence.

Although I attended church, I sadly wavered in my faith as I grew up. However, in 1991 I went to a Faith Mission conference in Bangor, Northern Ireland, and...