Our online gathering on Sunday 2nd November marked the 23rd day of 40 days of prayer and fasting for the Church in the UK and Ireland. As always we offered our time together to the Lord and began with worship of God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
“God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” (1John 1.5)
“Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds Your righteousness is like the mountains of God; your judgments are like the great deep; man and beast you save, O Lord. How precious is your steadfast love, O God! The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights. For with you is the fountain of life; in your light do we see light.” (Ps 36.5-9)
We were led into extended times of deep silence in our worship. A central theme emerged – the refining fire of God.
- We, the Church, have been marred by the world. An image of a battered, tarnished wedding ring was shared. There is a need for us to be put into the Lord’s crucible, to be refined and re-shaped by His holy fire. The ring speaks of Jesus’ covenant love for His Bride and His desire for us to be one with Him and each other. The Lord wants His Church to be visibly different to the world.
- “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfector of our faith…” (Heb 12.1-2). The fire of God burns away all the dross in our lives.
- An image of panning for gold was shared. Each of us and each church congregation/tradition carry small amounts of gold within. All these small nuggets need to be put into the furnace together in order to produce something precious. The Lord wants us to recognise and value the purity of gold He has put within each one of us and His Church. Together we will become the multifaceted beauty of the Bride of Christ.
- The golden calf (see Ex 32) was the result of God’s people placing value on the gold of the world (the gold they received from the Egyptians). When we deny our value – the value the Lord has placed upon us – we open the way to idolatry. The Lord wants to refine the gold within us, not to give away or use, but to bring Him glory in lives offered as worship.
- The Lord has been speaking a lot about our hearts recently. Peter the apostle states, “…though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” (1Peter 1.6-7). Our trials in life are as God’s crucible, in which He tests our trust and faith in Him as the only Lord in our lives.
- Our gathering was punctuated by times of prayer during which we asked the Lord to consume us in His holy fire. We used the hymn of Charles Wesley as a prayer:
O thou who camest from above
the fire celestial to impart,
kindle a flame of sacred love
on the mean altar of my heart!
There let it for thy glory burn
with inextinguishable blaze,
and trembling to its source return
in humble prayer and fervent praise.
Jesus, confirm my heart’s desire
to work, and speak, and think for thee;
still let me guard the holy fire,
and still stir up the gift in me.
Ready for all thy perfect will,
my acts of faith and love repeat;
till death thy endless mercies seal,
and make the sacrifice complete.
- The Lord is doing a new thing. The image of tiny nuggets of gold being refined together suggests the Lord inviting us to a new level of oneness. Those who took part in the recent Maranatha weekend at Crossgar, N Ireland all experienced a deep oneness with the Lord and one another, which was of a different quality to the oneness experienced in previous gatherings and retreats. The gold which emerges from the furnace is ready to be fashioned by the goldsmith. We were reminded of the previous word given: ‘same clay, different form’. The Lord is bringing His new order.
We approach the remaining days of prayer and fasting with anticipation of what the Lord will yet do!
