I kind of feel that as we come close to the Lord we become like coals of fire in the altar before the Lord…

There’s a passage in Ezekiel (two passages actually) which indicates (indicate) that the coals of fire are sitting underneath the Lord near the Cherubim who surround the Lord (Ezekiel 1 & Ezekiel 10)…

I feel that as we come closer and closer to the Lord all we care about is His Glory…

We don’t care about our own lives…

We don’t care about our own glory…

We don’t even care about the promises which the Lord has made us…

We seem to be caught up in this place where it is truly all about Him…

We seem quite content in this place…

We don’t seem to have any need to go anywhere else…

We don’t seem to want to be known…

Or to achieve anything particularly…

But just to be there and be burnt in the Fire of His Holiness…

His Glory in the burning – the burning which we long for to make us into His Likeness…

His Likeness in the Likeness of His Glory…

He burns…

He burns with a brilliant fire…

He is Fire…

A Consuming Fire…

We burn in the Altar…

Like coals of fire in His Altar…

He says, “Do not strive in My Presence” conversely He says, “Do not resist My Holy Spirit”…

These two instructions from the Lord define the place in the Fire as a coal of fire in the Altar, the Hand, of the Lord…

We are yielded to Him…

To do whatever He likes with our lives…

We are not pretending to be able to do what He tells us to do…

Quite the opposite…

But we are willing to remain on His Altar until He burns in us the ability and the desire and the motivation and the ability to achieve the things which He has instructed us to complete and to perform…

This is our place – waiting as a coal of fire on His Altar for Him to perfect in us through the flames of the suffering which He permits in our lives for us to be ready and raised up to complete His will…

Only in His Time…

We will go and we will do and we will return…

In fact never leaving that place – the coals of fire…

The Fire from His Altar is purifying…

Pure…

Powerful…

Holy…

There is nothing of self in it…

The Fire from His Altar is what we need to practically sanctify us to the Lord – set us apart to the Lord…

We are eunuchs to Him…

Set apart for Him in the spiritual realm…

He holds our hearts – He has our hearts…

As we go lower, He goes deeper…

Deeper – to the source, to the core of who we are…

We see things from His Perspective…

We are changed…

We are changed in the Fire…

I came across an old Keswick hymn or chorus in my Nanny’s hymnbook from when she was newly saved (sometime in the 1930’s) back in England before her family came to New Zealand in the early 1950’s (I’ve just found a version of it at the following link http://ehymnbook.org/CMMS/hymnSong.php?folder=p30&id=pd30531 )…

One version of the chorus said,

My all is on the Altar, I’m waiting for the Fire, I’m waiting, waiting, waiting, I’m waiting for the Fire…

I started singing it the other day…

Our all is on the Altar, We’re waiting for the Fire, We’re waiting, waiting, waiting, We are waiting for the Fire…

I started singing the above after singing it personally as I sensed there are a group of us in this situation throughout the world who are waiting for the Fire…

The Baptism of Fire…

I saw that we are waiting and as we wait the Lord is pleased to increase our desire – we will not wane in our desire – we want nothing else – and there will be a time when the Fire is tipped out from heaven and scorches our very beings – He will tip out His Fire on us – yes I am mixing my metaphors – and we will be changed but we will also remain as coals of fire in His Altar – this will never change…

There really is a separation in this place – the Fire separates…

Anyone who does not want to walk in the Fire of God is separated from us…

We stand alone with others who are willing – made willing by the Lord – to walk in the Fire of God – no one else wants to join us…

I see this – but once given this by the Lord there is nothing else, nowhere else that you would rather be – in His Fire – experiencing the death that He gives – the stripping, the ending that makes to all our natural desires and to all our natural affections…

Everything is yielded in this place…

Even things which we believe are from Him…

There is the good – the permissible – and the best and we start to see that the best is more satisfying than the permissible – our desire for His Glory and for His Pleasure – His Pleasure on our lives becomes so strong that we let go of the promises which He has made us – which we have “held Him to” because they involve our own pleasure and we begin to petition Him “against ourselves” for those who would be affected by those decisions and we begin to seek Him selflessly for His Glory and the betterment of those affected with the promises which we believe He has made us…

In this place we care only for Him…

We do not even care for our own lives…

This is the place where we experience the Fellowship of Sharing in His Sufferings…

becoming like Him in His death – His death was complete – not just His Physical Death but His death which He died as He lived on this earth – His Death – He died to everything which He ever wanted, even good things like being with His Father so that He could save us from our sins – the permissible versus the best and He went through it because He was so close to the Father’s Heart that He no longer cared about Himself…