Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. – 1 John 4:8 (ESV)
for our God is [indeed] a
consuming fire. – Hebrews 12:29
(AMP)
So, since “God is love”
and “God is a consuming fire”, can we
conclude that Love is a consuming fire?
Here’s why…
God, through the work of His Holy Spirit in us, teaches us
how to love.
Spirit teaches us God’s way of love, authentic Love.
Now, looking at both Ephesians 4:23 and Psalm 51:10, we
could say that God’s love cannot exist in us unless we are renewed in spirit. It
follows then that we must get rid of the old ideas, beliefs and ways of
thinking which are natural – carnal, of the world – and replace them with a
spiritual sensibility.
The only way to do this is by allowing Spirit to renew our
minds through the process of purification.
God purifies us by fire, in the form of trials or challenges
or tests.
I will bring that group
through the fire and make them pure. I will refine them like silver and purify
them like gold. – Zechariah 13:9 (NLT)
Just as gold is purified by thoroughly burning away the
dross, so too is the process of our purification where the scum of slag will be
removed from our lives (see Isaiah 1:25).
Beloved, this is what God’s Love does in you and to you; the
fire of God’s Love consumes you, and you are made beautiful.
Through this often-painful process, He gives you “beauty for ashes, joy instead of mourning, praise
instead of heaviness” (Isaiah 61:3).
And like the phoenix, a symbol of early Christianity, is
burned to ashes and reborn a thing of beauty, you are reborn after experiencing
the consuming fire of God’s authentic Love. All that is ugly in you is burnt up,
and what emerges is the beauty of God’s Love expressed through you.
Amen †
Shelley Johnson “Love is a consuming fire” ©2013 revisited
September 9, 2025
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