July 7, 2001

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  Consume –

  
  

  One of the paradoxes of Christian theology is that we believe in a God who simultaneously consumes and exalts to glory the individual worshipper. In God all is lost and all is gained. The Bible is full of these dual images, "The hills melt like wax at the presence of the Lord . . . The Lord by wisdom founded the earth; by understanding he established the heavens."

  
  

  The God of Glory is a refining fire, burning away all impurity, and a Compassionate Protector who covers us with the shadow of His wings. It’s easy to think of the word consume as synonymous with "destroy." After all you consume food, and it’s gone. But, we learn as we become older that the consumption of food doesn’t destroy it, it changes it. The foods we consume become the substance of our flesh.

  
  

  To be consumed by God is to be absorbed into His being, not so that the individual in identity, consciousness, or soul is destroyed, but changed. Inflexible rules of human nature become malleable in the transforming shadow of God. The person who fears and resists finds only terror and pain, but the one who embraces the transcendent LIFE becomes divine. Not through his or her own will, power, ability or action, but through the consuming love of God.

  
  

  The flesh of God on earth is made of those who cast themselves into His fire. He transforms, discards the toxins, rebuilds the tissues, and incorporates them into divine flesh. Through the holy hands and hearts He has set aside for Himself, He reaches into the world and interacts with men. We cannot see with our physical eyes the difference between the consumed ones, and the others, but our hearts know them.

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