Amazing Grace!

I have come to cast fire upon the earth, and what would I but that it be kindled?

--Jesus, Luke 12:49

 

When God places within us the fire of His Holy Spirit, it changes everything -- especially the way we read Scripture.  Before the annointing with fire at Pentecost, the Apostles were "slow to understand," in the words of Jesus.  After the Resurrection, but even before Pentecost, the disciples on the road to Emmaus felt "their hearts burning within them" as Jesus unfolded the Scriptures to them, beginning with the prophets, "interpreting to them in all the Scriptures the things referring to himself" (Luke 24:27).  And shortly afterwards, Jesus appeared to the "eleven" who were gathered together, saying "These are the words which I spoke toyou while I was yet with you..."  Then he opened their minds, that they might understand the Scriptures (Luke 24:45).

 

I think the mental journey of the Apostles must be the journey of every man.  At first, we read the Scriptures out of curiosity, searching for information -- or maybe inspiration.  And, like the Scriptures of other faiths, we may find something strangely beautiful or informative -- but somehow, not necessarily life-changing.  And, like the Apostles, we seem "slow to understand."  There is much there that we reject because it does not fit into our world-view, or because we do not understand its meaning. 

 

I once met a woman under some very unusual circumstances -- I still think she may have been an angel sent to teach me -- who could unfold the Scriptures to me in a way no one else ever had up to that point.  Whatever she had, I wanted it.  I asked if she had gone to ministry school to gain her understanding of the Scriptures.  She told me, "Whenever I don't understand something, I stop reading and ask for God to show me what I need to see."  I had never read Scripture that way, so I adopted her practice.  I never saw nor heard from that woman again, but that one moment changed me forever. 

 

It was not until a young woman prayed for me in the hospital that Scripture began to come alive for me, and once it did, I could not stop reading it.  I was no longer reading for information, as I might read an encyclopedia; now I was reading because it was "MY story."  Abraham's story was MY story; the Acts of the Apostles gave me the understanding of what I had experienced after the prayer in the hospital -- a prayer for the "Baptism of the Holy Spirit."  Never in my life had a simple prayer changed everything --- my attitude, my outlook, my understanding, my behavior, my prayer life. 

 

This was no mere prayer; this was the fire that Jesus came to cast upon the earth; this was "Amazing Grace" such as I had never before experienced!  God told Jeremiah that He would make His words "like fire" in Jeremiah's mouth, and the people like wood.  We know that gold is refined by fire; wood is destroyed.  No wonder the world is so afraid of the fire of God's word!