Alien Fire

This is Part 1 in the series I called “Returning The Fire Of God To The Church”

There is a divine call for us as the church to return to the presence of God, the person of the Holy Spirit and the fire of God in our lives. Jesus spoke about that; He spoke about the baptism of fire in the scriptures. 1 Peter 2:9 says, “but you are a chosen race”, I’m reading from the new American standard version, one of my good old favorites. There are many other translations but I believe it does justice to the word-by-word and word-for-word translation very well, and that’s why I like it…it continues, ”but you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession.” Isn’t that wonderful? That last part, “a people for God’s own possession”!

God loves us, and He wants to tell us today that we are very special to Him…we are possessed by Him…He loves us so much. A people for God’s own possession, and here’s the reason why, “so that we or you may proclaim the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light”, for you once we’re not a people”, and that’s talking really to the Gentile nations because remember, the whole story of the Bible and books in the Bible are pretty much in Hebrew and a history of God’s people that he chose; but we have been taken as Gentiles, and all of us together, Jew and Gentile have become this royal priesthood if we come into relationship with God through Jesus. Verse 10 continues, “for you were once not a people but now you are the people of God, you had not received mercy,” isn’t that wonderful?

I know we talk a lot about grace these days, and I think we got it confused, we’re confused about the meaning of grace and mercy. We were not of people who had received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Verse 11 says, “but now beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers”, and I want you to pay attention to that word aliens and strangers because I’m going to refer to it in the video; “beloved I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul”.  I do believe that the church, what we have all been through recently over the last two years and a bit, including COVID-19,  lockdowns and all of those things…and the different laws that have been imposed and different mandates that men are trying to place on the Church of Jesus Christ and on humanity itself…restraints that we never had before all around the world…some countries more obvious and prevalent than others…all of these things are pressing us as God’s children, and the Bible says there will be a falling away in the last days. Many of these things are pressing us as God’s children into a place of checking on our status and standing with God to see if we are this chosen generation and royal priesthood, a people of God’s own possession.

What kind of fire are we offering to God and to others in need of healing and transformation?

We’re very special to Jesus!