A MUSEUM OF MARBLE FIGURES

A burning message, and nothing but that, is supposed to be presented to the world. There is no need for fireworks. Firebrands do not have to be hotheads. Everything about the Church, however, should reflect the warm light of God. “In His temple everyone says, ‘Glory!’” (Psalm 29:9). We read that God makes His ministers “a flame of fire” (Hebrews 1:7). His people should be torches. Not only the evangelists, but ministers, church officials, leaders, workers, teachers and administrators should all glow with the Holy Spirit, like braziers on a cold, dark street. The business meeting should see Holy Spirit fire just as much as the revival meeting, perhaps even more so.

A fish has the same temperature as the water in which it swims. Too many Christians are like fish – they have no more warmth of spirit than the cold, unbelieving world around them. Men are warm-blooded creatures. That is the way the Lord made us. That is also the way He chose us to take the Good News – with warmth!

The Lord does not send us out because we have cool heads and dignity. Nor does He choose us because of our self-composure. He sends us out with live coals from the altar, as witnesses to the Resurrection, to testify that we have met the God of Pentecost. I have heard sermons that were like lectures on embalming the dead. Would such a talk remind anyone of the Living Jesus? Neither Jesus, nor Peter, nor Paul left congregations sitting like marble statues in a museum.

Reinhard Bonnke

PS: I am most convicted in this. I let the temperature of the world around me to sometimes bring me to their level.