A very strong deep underlying essence of the end of this age lays upon my spirit. Recently, as I write what God impresses and inspires within my spirit, there remains the sense that these are among the last words of an ending of life as it has been and the beginning words of a promise of a new way. Far beyond the scope of my natural understanding exists a living image emerging as light through the darkness. It is an image of a fresh new reality of glorious life replacing the ashes of the life we have known.
Many of you reading this are seeds being fully transitioned within to the new way of life to come beyond the consummation of the life that was. You have been and are now being planted with the seeds of New Jerusalem the Garden of Eden life in the pure holy soil of your heart.
Deep within you is the pure living pattern of the way of God’s rule on Planet Earth, transforming you into seeds to be planted in the world to come. Hold fast to the pure holy seed of the King and His kingdom. You are not your own but have been bought with a price to be the life of Christ Jesus on earth.
The Baptism of Fire
John the Baptist said that Jesus would baptize us with the Holy Spirit and with FIRE.
Mat 3:11-12: I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that comes after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit, and with fire: Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the barn; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.
Most of us probably have experienced the baptism with the Holy Spirit. However, we may not have fully experienced the baptism with FIRE.
In this season just immediately prior to some major experiences of the power of fire on a worldwide scale, God is further revealing the purpose of the baptism with fire. The fire of God is in part the intense manifestation of the love of God manifested in favor of His people on earth. The pure holy LOVE of God spawns the cleansing power of the FIRE of God to purify and make holy His people and the world around us.
Most of us are probably well familiar with the power of human love for another person. There is a power released that changes everything when “boy meets girl” so to speak. Chemistry is released within the body that powerfully affects the brain, and the entire life may be altered. Priorities are changed; life plans may be changed because of the powerful effect of the experience of human love. The love of a mother of a new born baby is so intense and consuming that nothing in the whole world seems as important as that beautiful new life in her arms. The love of a father for a child can cause them to risk and perhaps lose their own life to save the child.
As it is in the natural, so is it in the spiritual.
There is a “spiritual chemistry” that is even more powerful as it deals not just with the soul but also the very depth of the spirit of the person. That spiritual passion is the work of the FIRE of God. Our God is an all-consuming FIRE. The love and fire of God are inseparable. It is the LOVE FIRE of God that causes us to lose our lives to become the sons of the Father, the Bride of Christ Jesus, carriers of His life into the world to be the fulfillment of His will on earth.
We become unrestrained supernatural beings of His love fire to rule and reign with Him. The chemistry of the love of God is the most powerful life-changing force in the world.
The baptism of fire is to sanctification what the baptism of the Holy Spirit is to power.
Most people in the world, including many Christians, have never experienced either the baptism with the Holy Spirit or the baptism with Fire. Some may have received the baptism with water unto repentance but are still lacking the reality of the fullness of the power and love fire of God. Even many who have received the baptism with the Holy Spirit have not yet received the fullness of the baptism with fire.
When the baptism with the Holy Spirit was re-introduced to the church just over a hundred years ago, the fullness of the baptism with fire was not received. The power of the Holy Spirit was released among the people, but without the sanctification work of the baptism of fire, there were impurities that affected much of the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements.
Now in this season the revelation of the baptism of fire is becoming fully evident to the people of God who have been filled with the Spirit of God.
Many of us have struggled for decades in growing gradually toward sanctification. Without the fullness of the reality of the experience of the baptism with FIRE, the people were left to struggle with faith for overcoming fleshly desires, forgiving others, healing of diseases, overcoming painful past experiences, deliverance from demonic strongholds, and from false religious covenants and practices.
Yes, we had some fire but without being totally consumed by the love fire of God, it was like our past life structures were only partially burned and became a pile of burnt timbers and debris rather than becoming a pile of ashes from a total consuming fire. It was then as if many gathered up some of the old half burned pieces and began to attempt to rebuild another religious life structure for ourselves. God said He would give us beauty for ashes, not for a pile of debris.
The baptism of fire does not deal with our sin. The penalty for our sin has been taken care of at the cross and manifested in the baptism in water of repentance. RATHER THE BAPTISM OF FIRE COMPLETELY REMOVES OUR TENDENCY OR NEED TO SIN. IT REMOVES OUR INIQUITY OR DESIRE FOR UNGODLY ACTIVITY.
Being consumed in His love fire so cleanses our hearts and lives, that all we desire or need is Him and His desire for us. He is totally sufficient, and we are free to intimately relate to Him and to express with all boldness His love and life to the world around us.
Yes, I am saying that God wants to now make us free from struggling with sanctification or anything else. God wants us to be baptized with the passion of the FIRE of His LOVE that takes us to a higher place with Him and that causes us to mature quickly into full grown sons of His glory without the religious practice of precept upon precept, here a little and there a little, line upon line of feeding us as spiritual babies. The process of personal growth and restoration is not done away with in the baptism of fire. However, instead it is greatly accelerated.
“Whom will he teach knowledge?
And whom will he make to understand the message?
Those just weaned from milk?
Those just drawn from the breasts?
10 For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept,
Line upon line, line upon line,
Here a little, there a little.”
11 For with stammering lips and another tongue
He will speak to this people,
12 To whom He said, “This is the rest with which
You may cause the weary to rest,”
And, “This is the refreshing”;
Yet they would not hear.
13 But the word of the Lord was to them,
“Precept upon precept, precept upon precept,
Line upon line, line upon line,
Here a little, there a little,”
That they might go and fall backward, and be broken
And snared and caught.” (Isaiah 28: 9-13)
The first century disciples received both the baptism with the Holy Spirit and the baptism with FIRE at one time beginning in the upper room. Immediately they were moving unrestrained in the work of Jesus, though they must have had lots of religion and demonic stuff affecting their lives since the world was filled with it at that time as it is now. It was all burned out, fully cleansed by the intense fire of the love of God in one day. Their hearts and lives were consumed with their love for God. They did not go through the rest of their lives struggling to be sanctified. The baptism with the Holy Spirit and with the Love Fire of God purged them completely.
Can you imagine the depth of broken-heartedness that had melted their lives at the brutal death of Christ Jesus? Their world had seemingly ended, and that for which they had left all was gone from them. Can you see the parallel of the season that we, as once Christion nations, are now entering? Our lives as we have known them is being taken from us, and it seems the darkness of evil has won the situation just as it must have seemed to the people waiting in the upper room.
The mature sons of God in this age now will be formed quickly by the baptism of the Spirit and Fire as were the disciples in the first century. No longer precept upon precept, line upon line, and here a little and there a little.
A fullness of time has come.
There is a process of restoration and revelation that has been taking place for many centuries as piece by piece and layer by layer God has been restoring by removing the cover and allowing the light of revelation to expose parts to mankind in the order in which we have become ready to receive. One of the more recent restorations has been the baptism with the Holy Spirit, and now in this season the baptism with fire is being more fully revealed and received.
There is a natural and a spiritual manifestation of the power of the fire of God both within His people and upon the physical world. The passion of the love fire of God releases the fire of cleansing judgments upon the ungodliness in the religious and the secular world systems. God’s passionate love for His people and for His beautiful Planet Earth will not allow the evil plague of darkness to continue to destroy His people and His world. His LOVE FIRE must now bring cleansing judgments to end the madness of evil darkness on earth, thus cleansing the earth and the mixtures from His people making place for the fullness of His kingdom on earth.
Seek first the kingdom of God. Ask God for and embrace the baptism with Fire.
Ron McGatlin
www.openheaven.com
basileia@earthlink.net