Rekindling the Fire
Introduction

Some of us live on a farm in Vermont, and we heat our home with a woodstove. Many a cold morning I’ve gone to the stove and opened it up to find only a pile of ashes. Although it seems to be dead, I stir up the heap and blow on those black and gray coals, bringing to life a dull red glow in the burnt-out belly of that stove. I rake the coals all together in a pile, and the more I gently blow on the embers the brighter they glow until they’re hot enough to ignite some tinder. I rekindle the fire.

A man’s heart is like an ember hidden beneath the ashes, just waiting to be stirred up and inspired, hoping to apprehend some bit of the truth to wake up what lies dormant. Some hearts burn to know the truth. We believe that people can still hear it, and that the truth stands on its own. Anyone who wants to know the truth will hear and accept it. But what is it?

We want to be real about who we are. We don’t want you to think we’re lofty and beyond everyone else. But there is an amazing quality in our people. The word holy is like the word wholly. Though most of us were living aimless lives, we all wholly desired to know the truth, and were willing to give everything to get it. When the gentle breath of the truth blew on the smoldering embers in our hearts, it caught our whole life on fire. When we heard it we just couldn’t go back to our same old jobs, our same old routines, habits and hobbies, our same old lives. We could never be the same again. We had to be wholly devoted to our God. That’s what it means to be holy. Now our hearts are glowing.

We are a people with prophetic vision, a people with a hope to be a light to the world,[1] a city set on a hill,[2] a holy nation,[3] one that will startle the rulers and kings of other nations and leave them speechless.[4] We hope to become the “stone” kingdom that will ultimately topple the intimidating “statue” of this current world order, displacing it with a kingdom of love that will fill the entire earth in the coming age.[5] Right now we’re like that small pile of embers raked together in the belly of my old woodstove. The breath of God is gently blowing on us.

We are living to see this hope that burns in our hearts consume the whole earth. However, our dreams, aspirations, and vision of who we are as a people are nothing apart from our King, Yahshua the Messiah, the Son of God. We are His own possession.[6] We don’t want to be anything other than that; we don’t want to be anywhere else but where He is, and we don’t want to do anything other than what He’s doing. We’re in love with Him, and He’s in love with us.

His love is making those embers hot. He has raked us all together, breathed on us, and is getting a warm glow going. And He is sifting through the ashes of this fallen world, looking for more embers to rake into the pile until there’s enough to burst into a flame.

Maybe you’re one of them.