‘The pure in heart will see God.’
Jesus
Every night, I light the candles in my bathroom before taking a bath. It’s a relaxing ritual, and it is something I look forward to doing every night.
When I light the match, I pay attention to the whooshing sound it makes, and the smell that comes from it. I also notice how it immediately brings light to the darkest of rooms.
A few weeks ago, the JSSM students had to think of a specific smell, and then prophesy that smell over each other. The student that I was partnered with immediately had a word for me:
‘I was at a conference recently, and I kept smelling fire. More specifically, I kept noticing the smell a match makes immediately after it’s lighted. I looked around every time I smelled it, but couldn’t find the source. I think it was a manifestation of the Holy Spirit… and that’s what I feel for you…
You’re going to jump into the fire; you’re not going to light the fire.’
When I go through my Book of Prophecies, I see numerous prophecies about the fire. How I’m in the fire, how I light a fire in others’ hearts, and how South Africa will be set ablaze by the fire I carry inside of me.
This year, I’ve been struggling with the rewriting of my memoir. Every time I dive in, deep emotional healing takes place and I’m exhausted for the rest of the day. It’s a time-consuming project, and I’ve been frustrated with the slow pace of it all.
I keep thinking of Moses and that when he went up to Mount Sinai, the Lord wrote ‘a book’ – the result was the Ten Commandments. After Moses spent time apart with the Lord, he came down the mountain with his face shining. Moses had been purified in the presence of the Lord, and he had seen His face. But it came with a price; there’s always a price to be paid.
What does it mean to be purified in the fire? We all cry out for the fire of the Lord, and we all want to burn. But do we realize the cost of what we’re asking?
Fire has a devastating effect on everything it touches. The blue, yellow, and white flames are uncontainable, Fire is quite destructive; it destroys everything that comes across its path.
I recently watched a powerful YouTube session called ‘Power Hour’ – Episode 209 by the Global Prophetic Alliance. During a conversation between Emma, Sam & Katrina, the following was highlighted to me:
‘God has set us to be consumed by fire. You are meeting with the ferocity of God. To say that He has unsettled us is an understatement. He is burning through our pretenses. He is burning some of the coal where it was misaligned. He is burning some of the anointings you thought you had.
The burning of God is so deep, it has exhausted us.
We are grieving the loss of a previous season. We are grieving the loss of the sense of ourselves. So you grieve, and your grieving is fire but it’s also grief.’
Emma
‘God is challenging and changing us on every front of our lives. He’s not just getting you ready for the next month or the next year, he’s getting you ready for the decades to come. Endure the process; it’s okay to not know what to do.’
Sam
‘It’s dangerous to walk up that mountain if your motivations aren’t pure. Say, ‘Holy Spirit, keep me here then, if I just need to stay at this little path until it’s right to move on. Let me stay here because I want to make sure that when I ascend the mountain of the Lord, I have clean hands and a pure heart. That’s the mandatory requirement for seeing the face of God, that’s what He is doing with this fire, this purge. Then you get to move to the next stage of the mountain journey.’
Emma
The session ended off with the following statement: ‘Allow Me to take you to the valley of grief so that you can get to the mountaintop of joy.’
The burning season is one of pain, cleansing, and deep healing. It’s getting rid of the things that can keep us from seeing the face of God. It’s incredibly devastating, for it means getting rid of idols, walls, and lies. But it’s so necessary, and the only way to get to the mountaintop is to go through the pathways of destruction.
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‘He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to an idol or swear deceitfully. He will receive blessing from the LORD and vindication from the God of his salvation.
Such is the generation of those who seek Him, who seek Your face, O God of Jacob.
Psalm 24:4-6
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