God's Consuming Fire

1st Peter 1 paints a glorious and effective picture of God, the great refiner, who desires to consume us with holy fire, and who uses the difficulties of life in that refining process:
6 In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that your faith--of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire--may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.  Our God is a consuming fire - He desires to bring us into conformity with His will and to transform us into the very image of Jesus Christ.   He will deal with our hearts as we subject ourselves to His hand, and He will use the trials of life to teach us to rely on Him more wholeheartedly.   In a day where so many are attempting to design, essentially, their own religion, their own path to self-actualization, the Word of God teaches us that to really live we have to deny ourselves and submit to His loving hand.  1st Corinthians 3 illustrates for us the value of God's consuming fire, which tests our hearts, which refines us internally, and will ultimately be used to judge the works of our lives: 12 If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13 his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work. 14 If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. 15 If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.


For some 26 years now, people have been gathering for what has to be one of the largest examples of worship to a non-deity anywhere in the world - it started on a California beach and has moved to the Nevada desert, where over 50,000 people gathered in a tribute to artistic self-expression and self-reliance.  It's the Burning Man event, where attendees seek some sort of godless self-actualization, culminated with the burning of a 40-foot high effigy of a man, for some reason that is unclear.

People attending build a temporary city, congregate in community, and celebrate the power of humanity.   There are costumes in abundance.  This year's theme was Fertility 2.0, and according to the Daily Mail, quoting the website:  "This year's art theme contemplates the tendency of any being or living system to create abundant life.   Festival-goers were encouraged to create art based on fertility and its many wonders.

The Burning Man, so named for his destiny, will stand astride a grand pavilion that is similar in shape to the Pantheon of ancient Rome.

'Arching portals and two mezzanines will wrap around an atrium; circles will encompass circles, telescoping to an open skylight several stories overhead,' the site says. 

Burning Man participants who assemble in the Black Rock desert are encouraged to adhere to ten principles, including Radical Inclusion, Gifting, Decommodification, Radical Self-reliance, Radical Self-expression, Communal Effort, Civic Responsibility, Leaving No Trace, Participation and Immediacy.

I think that you have a microcosm of culture's attitude toward religion here in this assembly - instead of allegiance to Almighty God, you have self-driven designer religion, where the deity is not a Supreme Being, but rather supreme self-expression, reminiscent of a great tower from centuries ago, where humans attempted to show their self-reliance by building a structure to heaven.

The Burning Man can remind us that we have to be watchful of ideas that stir passion, ideas that a religious in a sense, but end up glorifying self.  Even as Christians, we have the choice to pursue self-interest rather than God's glory.   We can accept our own ideas and ideals while rejecting God's direction for our decisions.   And, ironically enough, the image of fire for the Christian is very powerful - the fire of the refiner who who works internally to bring us into conformity with the principles of God's Word, the fiery trials, the external factors, that come and are used by that refiner to bring character into our lives, and the fire that the ultimate judge uses to determine which works survive and which are consumed.    God wants to ignite and stir a holy fire in our lives based on our desire to be His disciple and follow Him.