Firestarters Love FireWorks
Each year, we celebrate the 4th of July holiday with friends at our house, barbequing, swimming, and finally, watching the city’s spectacular fireworks display from our back deck.
I love fireworks.
I love the loud booming ones that rattle the bones, and the crackling ones that split the sky.
I love the explosion of colors, the ones that envelope the sky, and the ones that shimmy, dance, and droop towards the earth.
As we watch the amazing display, each firework expresses a glory that demands a response of, “Ooh’s and awe’s”, as well as loud cheers of approval when surprised by the majesty released in the heavens above.
God Wants To Wow Us With His Fireworks
Fireworks are a display of the battles that were fought to ensure our independence as a nation. Thus, the 4th of July is a day of remembrance of the freedom that was won through the hard fought battles against all enemies.
In the same way, God wants to demonstrate the freedom he won for us in the battle that Jesus fought and won for us on the cross. The resurrection is the wonderful display of that victory, in which light and life explodes out of the darkness and death.
God wants to continue to display His glory through signs and wonders, miracles, healing, the prophetic, interventions, insights, wisdom, and blessings of all kinds.
Whenever God shows up in His majesty to defeat the enemy’s purpose to destroy our lives, it is natural to respond with “ooh’s and awe’s” at God’s goodness exploding towards us.
The Bible emphatically tells us that Jesus came for this reason: to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:18).
God destroys the enemy’s works of darkness and death through supernatural signs and wonders that reveal His glory. Signs point us to the goodness of God, and wonders reveal the truth of His existence.
Fireworks are a display of the reality of Heaven coming to earth, demanding a “wow” response.
Fireworks Consist Of Passionate Fire
God did not send Jesus into the world to condemn the world, but that the world would be saved through Him (John 3:16,17). God’s fire is intended to spark us to life, not destroy us through judgment.
Mercy always triumphs over judgment (James 2:13).
When God’s passionate love is demonstrated to the world, people get healed, saved, and delivered. The first apostles released the passionate powerful presence of God to the world around them that resulted in people getting saved as a result of the fireworks they witnessed.
A Firestarter is consumed by the passionate presence of God that exudes the love of God to whoever we meet, and demonstrated in practical ways that reveal His love.
Fireworks Consist Of Miraculous Works
A Firestarter is moved by God’s passionate love to release a practical demonstration of His love to those around us. Jesus did this by healing the sick, prophesying hope into hopeless situations, providing supernatural solutions, forgiving people who only God could forgive, and delivering people from the dominion of darkness.
Jesus’ work was to display the glory of God:
For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God's glory displayed in the face of Christ.
Jesus said that He and the Father were always at their work; they were always working (John 5:17)
Paul commands us to honor those who work hard (1 Thessalonians. 5:12).
God does not expect us to work for our salvation, but we are to imitate Christ who always worked miracles, even on the Sabbath (Luke 13:14).
Just as there are different kinds of fireworks, so too, there are various displays of God’s powerful presence that He wants to demonstrate to the world, so that they can get a glimpse of His true nature and character; that He is good, and that He does good things.
God Wants To Wow The World Through Us
God wants to use us to demonstrate the fireworks of Heaven through our acts of risk. He wants to ignite us with His passionate love, compelling us to release His powerful presence to the world around us.
God’s glory is revealed when we demonstrate the power of God’s presence to heal the sick and prophesy to the people God places in our lives.
It is these fireworks that get the attention of unbelievers, convincing them of the reality of God’s existence and His ability to save, as well as encouraging believers that God is truly with them and for them.
Jesus commanded His disciples to do fireworks in Matthew 10:7, 8, when He said,
As you go, preach the message of the Kingdom of Heaven. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, and cast out demons…
As His disciples today, we are challenged with the same command as the first disciples, which is how Jesus demonstrated the truth of His identity and destiny.
The apostle Paul points out that, “We are Christ’s ambassadors as though God were making His appeal through us (2 Cor. 5:20)”. In other words, God is drawing in the world around us through our testimony.
Like Jesus, our testimony consists of fireworks:
Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father (Matt. 14:10-13).
Firestarters learn to live from God’s presence, in which we are continually ignited by His passionate love to take risk to release His powerful presence in practical ways to demonstrate the goodness of God.
I want to encourage you to live like it’s the 4th of July every day because of the independence that Jesus won for us on the cross 2,000 years ago.
Let’s commit ourselves to starting fires of God’s passionate love wherever we go, and to whoever we meet.
Let’s be Firestarters that display the fireworks of God every day in supernatural ways!
Keep Burning
Kevin Dedmon