This morning in worship at Grace Orlando we sang a song from Hillsong "Love Like Fire" (available
here). As I was engaged in worship and singing, a stream of thoughts began flowing through my mind, which I wanted to share with you. These thoughts do not reflect the main message of the lyrics of the song, but they are where my mind and heart went this morning particularly.
As a side note, one of the things I find so helpful in my personal worship, that is beginning to seep more and more into my everyday experience and relationships, is my theological training. I guess $50,000 and 10 years is worth it for a rich experience of God that I can bring to my ministry.
We must begin with the reminder that our God is love. There are countless verses in Scripture that make it abundantly clear. In fact, not too many people would argue otherwise. So in my mind the jump I am making is to sing thinking of God the person (God is love, but love is not God, as Mark Driscoll recently pointed out [I don't know where]).
In the Old Testament, the book of Exodus, God begins to manifest himself visually to his people through different representations of fire, starting with the burning bush, then moving to where he leads the whole congregation into the Sinai plain with his presence being represented by a pillar of fire. One that burns for all to see.
When Israel saw it, it was to them a constant knowledge of the presence of God with them. When Israel wasn't hiking across the plain and had their tents set up, God's "portable church" was also set up in the center of the camp, and there the fire would rest, representing his presence with them.
Fast forward through 1300 years of redemptive history to Acts 2. When the Father sent the Holy Spirit, it says that visually what happened is tongues of fire came down--this represented the presence of God entering every person who surrendered their lives to God, who believed on Jesus for Salvation and asked God to reign in their lives. Every person who "loses their life" to find it again in Jesus is given the gift of the Holy Spirit. The overwhelming significance of this is that the God whose presence was represented by a huge pillar of flame in Exodus now resides not in temples made with human hands but in the HEARTS of every believer.
So now, when we say God’s love is like a fire burning for all to see, it does so in an of itself (God displays his character in many ways apart from man's input), but in part he does so through us, as we bring Him to the world. When we sing songs like this in public, it is one way of publicly declaring his name to those who he has yet to bring into his family. The more his love consumes us, it can't help but be seen and touch the lives of the people around us.
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P.S. When we sing we want to worship at his feet, what helps is to remember that God is ALWAYS present, and every moment is an opportunity to worship at his feet through prayer, through activity, through service of others, or a host of other ways of inviting him into our daily activity.