Today we are looking for the next strategy for sharing our faith. But when Jesus ascended to heaven he did not set out a 10 point plan and course of evangelism for his disciples but told them to wait for the fire to fall. For more on how to ignite your devotional life, see GRACE OUTPOURINGS: 21 DAYS REVIVAL DEVOTIONAL 

We need the Fire of God to witness

We need the power of God to witness not the latest techniques or courses.

Neither did the disciples just wait for the fire to come but sought the Lord in prayer every day until the fire came. Many of us just want to go to a conference and receive the fire of God form the anointed preacher without having hardly sought the Lord about it. How can we value what we have not sought with blood and tears? How can God entrust us with such an anointing that we don’t value?

Look at what the famous 19 Century preacher Bramwell said was the secret of his powerful preaching:

“I am receiving more love. It comes by drops after agony in prayer”

So let’s today ask Jesus to baptise us afresh with the Holy Spirit and fire (Mt 3:11).

Jeremiah had the fire inside of him (Jer 20:9):

But if I say, “I will not mention his word or speak anymore in his name,” his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed I cannot”

We have talked about the fire of God being the power of the Holy Spirit. But in this context it is the WORD OF GOD:

The Fire of God to be fed on (9a)

George Whitefield, the great evangelist, spent every day just consuming the Word for 2 hrs and then this fire flowed out of him like a torrent in his preaching that changed two nations.

D.L.Moody did the same. He got up at 4am to study the Word and sought the best teachers of his time to explain the word to him.

This fire must be in our bones. What does mean? A deep work, that begins in us first. In Gen 2:23 Adam said “This is now bone of my bones”, that is an integral part of him. How can we overflow of something that is not a part of us already?

If we are to preach or share the Gospel like these two revivalists, out of the overflow of our heart, this is going to mean more devotion to the Bible. So let’s die to our worldly pursuits, and pursue reading and studing the Bible like never before.

The Fire of God to direct our hearts (9b)

To the Hebrew mind, the heart is the seat of control of a person and then affects body, mind and soul. It’s what we love that controls our lives really although we may claim it is our mind and say “mind over matter” or “reason is king”.

So the Word of God must burn in our hearts and control it. Then all aspects of our lives will fall under our control, and the right control.

The problem today is that we burn for many other things that are not of the Lord, including good things like sport etc. We can only burn for the truth, the Word of God. Let us ditch the rest!

The Fire of God to be released (9c)

Preaching the Word brings persecution and many problems (8) and for that reason Jeremiah wanted “to guard it in his bones” like a prisoner. The word for “shut up” in his bones in the Hebrews means “constrained”, “restrained”. Jeremiah tried to hold it back, but it could not be restrained. It had to come out.

This is what we need today, so that the Word is preached powerfully like a torrent, in season and out of season. Surely we will see a great revival in our nation if men and women are baptised with the fire of the Spirit and release the Word of God everywhere they go.

Our Greatest Priority

Today we have two urgent priorities. We need to feed profoundly on the Word of God, allow it to deeply transform and guide our hearts and then preach it as a torrent to all. We need to seek for a fresh baptism of the Holy Spirit to anoint the Word of God.